Ship of the Line: Forever After Earth
by Ephemeral-Nightboy
Summary: YAHF. To get Willow to wear a more daring costume, Buffy and Xander agree to go in the same costume Willow does. Buffy picks a set of matching costumes that are something called FAE... When the spell wears off, Buffy, Xander, and Willow are left with new bodies, life-changing memories, and a city-sized starship. Hijinks Ensue.
1. Forever After Earth

(In response to Zaion's "Ship of the Line" Challenge.)  
YAHF. All characters and settings from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate SG-1 belong to their respective copyright-holders, of whom I am not one.  
Earthchild, however, is my own original SciFi setting.

* * *

**Forever After Earth**

"Oh no you don't, Wills," Buffy said.

Willow jumped, dropping the ghost costume she'd just pulled off the rack. "Don't what, Buffy? I wasn't gonna do anything to make you all with the don'ts," Willow protested weakly.

"Willow," Buffy whined.

"Okay fine," Willow sighed, picking up the ghost costume and putting it back on the rack.

"Come on, Wills, Halloween is all about being able to get away with wearing something that would cause a riot on a normal night," Buffy reiterated. "This is your chance to put on something daring that'll make Xander sit up and take notice, right?"

Willow suddenly looked around frantically, but Xander was clear on the other side of the costume shop and she calmed down, blushing. Willow nodded.

"Hey, I know," Buffy said. "Why don't we go as a matching pair? That way you won't be the only one wearing whatever you end up wearing."

"Um..." Willow dithered.

"Ooh, or even a matching trio, if we can find the right costumes... Hey, Xander!" Buffy called.

Xander looked up and ambled over, seconds before he would have found a certain toy rifle. "What's the what, gal-pals?"

"Um, Buffy thinks we should go in matching costumes," Willow said to her shoes.

"All three of us?" Xander asked, to which Willow nodded. "Really? Well sure, that could be fun, but most of these costumes are one-gender-only."

That was what Buffy was looking around for, and finally her gaze settled on a rack in the corner. There were two versions of what looked like some sort of wood-nymph costume, with a version for men and a version for woman.

"What about those?" Buffy said, heading towards them.

The costumes consisted of a form-fitting body-stocking the color of a very deep tan, with leafy vines woven into in strategically placed ornaments. According to the picture, each costume also came with a pretty golden anklet, bracelets, and a small bottle of spray-on tan in the same shade as the body-stocking, meant for the face. The male and female versions had different faint shading in the otherwise-uniformly-colored body-stocking, to emphasize a masculine or feminine physique without the need for padding. The cardboard tag read, _The Eternal Fae_.

"B-b-buffy!" Willow stammered. "I can't wear that!"

"Sure you can, Wills," Buffy said. "Right, Xander?"

Xander looked between the costumes, Buffy, and Willow. He swallowed. "I dunno, Buffster. They're kinda a lot with the flower-power-y-ness."

"But they're cheap, and Willow would look so great in these, don't you think?" Buffy hinted.

Xander tilted his head. "Yeah, she'd look nice. What do you say Willow? Time to hang up the bedsheet of Willow the Friendly Ghost?"

"Ah, okay," Willow sighed in defeat at her own predicament, while holding in naughty excitement at getting to see Xander in something just as revealing. The similar image of Buffy that popped into her head was in no way indicative of anything, at all, nope no sirree.

Three costumes were bought and paid for. A chaos mage dispensed shopkeeper pleasantries, and an ascended being named Janus tapped his metaphorical fingers together and cackled in delight.

* * *

Eelesia Rin, blinked in surprise when she suddenly found herself standing on a coarse, hard surface, surrounded by patches of something that looked like grass only smaller and blade-shaped, and little wooden buildings in light colors. Little creatures ran around her, growling at each other, looking to her like a bunch of outliers who'd disabled the safety limiters on their morph settings and then randomized them all.

Eelesia turned her attention inwards to her Dreamlink. _Location Context._

_Error. Overlink not found,_ came the answer, not quite in words, but more concrete than a mere feeling of absence. It was more like mentally glancing at something that normally ran in the background of her awareness, than thinking words.

In any case, no Overlink meant something very unusual was going on.

"Hey, little odd ones," Eelesia called. "Where are we? Do you know what's going on?"

The little creatures ignored her, and one actually leaped at her and bit her on the thigh with surprising jaw strength. "Hey, ow," Eelesia complained as the little creature's teeth kneaded her unbreakable skin.

"Somebody talk to me, or sign at me, or something, or I'm just going to assume you're all non-sapient," Eelesia warned.

The little creatures ignored her, and the one attached to her thigh by the teeth continued to savage her futilely. Eelesia made a face and sent streamers of her Utility Cloud into the little creatures head, and let off a small electrical discharge. The little creature fell from her thigh and lay twitching on the ground. Eelesia stretched her Utility Cloud into a larger arc, and made a loud crackle-snap of electric arcing that seemed to effectively scare the rest of the little creatures away.

"Leezee!" A familiar and yet unfamiliar voice called.

Eelesia turned and saw a normal-looking blonde woman - for a Fae, which meant unnaturally perfect bronze skin with a complete lack of body hair, a sexually-idealized and impossibly perfect figure, and no clothing beyond a few ornaments - running towards her. Eelesia's Dreamlink immediately identified the blonde as her close friend, Lyn Rea-Val.

Lyn sprinted up to her and slammed into Eelesia. Eelesia embraced her, and they shared a quick but searing kiss. Lyn pulled back and idly fondled one of Eelesia's breasts. The two looked at each other consideringly.

"What's with the new look?" they both asked at the same time.

"Huh?" they both responded.

Eelesia made her Utility Cloud form an optical sensor, and looked at herself. Sure enough, her morph settings had been changed drastically. Her hair was red and wavy, her face was a little longer and shaped completely different, and like Lyn her skin tone had been reset to the default bronze.

"What the luck?" Lyn exclaimed, obviously looking at herself the same way.

"We must be missing some time," Eelesia said. "Changing our morph settings this much would take days. Do you have any idea how we got here, or where here is?"

Just then, a noisy wheeled vehicle rumbled passed, producing a vaguely musical rhythmic thumping.

"Was that an internal combustion engine?" Lyn wondered, shaking her head. "If it wasn't for the weird little creatures running around, and the fact that I have no idea how I got here, and that we both apparently spent days in stasis 'cause like you said we look different, then I'd say we were standing in someone's history project."

"Well done, Lyn. Your counterfactual deduction skills are awesomtacular," Eelesia snarked, pouring on the sarcasm and swatting Lyn on the butt.

Lyn rolled her eyes. "Well we might as well look around. Somebody around here has to know where we are. Come on, let's get our bearings from the air..." Lyn trailed off as she frowned and hopped in place a few times. "Or not."

Eelesia, having also spun out a few loops of force from her skeletal magnetics, realized what the problem was. "There's no superconducting anchor grid! How? That's standard in even the most basic construction algorithms."

Lyn suddenly looked up suspiciously at the sky. "Leezee? I don't think we're under a projection. That looks like real sky. I think we're on a planet."

Eelesia slowly nodded, and sighed. "Which brings us right back to, how the luck did we get here?"

That was when they heard the scream. For a moment, neither Fae woman understood what they were hearing. The kind of frantic, panicked terror embodied in that scream was simply too alien. Fright, surprise, pain, these they would recognize, but it was seldom that a Fae feared for their life in the hearing of others.

The scream came again, and Eelesia finally recognized the sound as coming from a person. She shared a wide-eyed look with Lyn and together they ran towards the sound.

* * *

Cordelia Chase screamed as the smelly pirate guy yanked her up by her hair, his sword leaving a line of burning pain on her hip as it slashed through her catsuit.

And then suddenly she was free, her vision filled with rippling muscles and bronze skin... and leaves? What the hell?

Cordelia's jaw fell open as she saw a mostly naked man with a body like a greek god - he was wearing a couple of leafy things and metal things on one leg and one arm, but that was it - completely destroy the pirate guy with a liquid grace like nothing she'd ever seen before.

The man stood back, and seemed to stare at his bloody knuckles in shock. He turned around, and Cordelia almost started drooling. She had to force herself not to stare at the _work of art_ that was the impressive phallus jutting up from his hairless crotch.

Then she looked at his face, and her brain skipped like a broken CD player. Harris? How could that be Harris? Had she been _perving_ on _Harris_?

Cordelia shook it off, because no matter how much she suddenly wanted to, no way was she giving _Harris_ rescue sex. She clambered to her feet and dusted herself off.

"What the hell, Xander?" Cordelia snapped. "Where the hell are your clothes?"

* * *

Zach Reon was still reeling.

He'd gotten a bizarre satisfaction out of beating up the guy in the pirate costume. The problem was, Zach had actually hurt him. He hadn't seen blood in centuries, since the accident that ended his human life and left him in cryonic suspension.

Thoughts were coming back to him from that time. Things he hadn't bothered to remember for years and years. Because the guy he'd just beaten bloody, and the girl he'd saved, they were human, which was impossible. None of the Giaas would sit back and leave a sapient in a frail, flawed, natural body.

His mind went blank trying to figure out how he'd gotten there, but it was obvious that he was very far from home.

The girl stood up and yelled something, and his brain stuttered when he realized she was speaking english. Zach hadn't spoken english since his rebirth.

"What the helzander? Where the hell are your clothes?"

"I've not clothes for long lifetime, Miss," Zach said. "What's a helzander?"

"Hello? Zander? Did you lose your brains along with your cloths? Or did you trade them for those muscles?"

Zach stared. He didn't know where to begin to respond to that. The sound of running feet made him turn, and he saw a pair of girls that his Dreamlink identified as Eelesia and Lyn vault a chainlink fence, hit the ground in a roll, and come to their feet.

"Oh god, Buffy and Willow?" the human girl groaned. "You're kidding me right? This better be some weird hellmouthy thing... I cannot deal with you losers joining a nudist society on top of everything else! And using magic to make yourself hotter is _cheating_!"

"Oh, you too, Zach?" Eelesia asked as she greeted him with a kiss. "Our morph settings were changed when we found ourselves here too."

"Gals, there are humans here," Zach said thickly. "Look at that girl, she's bleeding. And look at... what I did... that guy on the ground. Unaugmented, natural, mortal, humans. It's almost as if we were on pre-singularity Earth."

"Hey! What are you perverts talking about?" the girl demanded. "Since when do you speak... whatever the hell that is? What the hell is going on tonight?"

Lyn suddenly perked up. "Hey, my translate request just went through. The Overlink's back! Stars, this girl is rude," she said as she went over what the human girl had said so far.

"Hey relax human girl, we're trying to figure out what's going on too," Lyn said in english.

Zach suddenly realized something. "Hey, miss, do we look like people you know?"

"Duh!" the girl said, pointing to each of them in turn. "Xander. Willow. Buffy."

Zach shook his head apologetically. "We're not them. We don't normally look anything like this, but our bodies are capable of looking any way we want, normally. My name's Zach. This is Eelesia, and Lyn. Can you tell us where we are?"

The girl was silent for a long moment. "Okay, that's actually a relief. After all, you're way hotter than any just world would ever let Xander Harris be. I'm Cordelia, and this is Sunnydale, California."

Zach blanched. "California, like the one on Earth?"

"Is there anywhere else it could be? Really," Cordelia huffed. "Well, good luck and everything but I am so done with Halloween this year."

Cordelia stalked off, and the three Fae shared a look.

"This is impossible," Zach finally complained.

"We'll know soon," Eelesia soothed. "Look at the Overlink map. It's only showing one server connection, but it's a generation ship, and it's in orbit. Let's call down a shuttle, and go ask the Giaa."

Eelesia sent the mental request through her Dreamlink even as she spoke, and she forwarded the landing coordinates to the other two. It was a short walk passed two houses to a streetcorner with an open area covered in Earth grass.

Zach leaned on one of Eelesia's shoulders, Lyn on the other, as they searched the sky.

"There," Lyn said, transmitting an image over the Dreamlink.

The generation ship was visible to the naked eye. Well, Fae eyes, which were a good deal sharper than human eyes, but even human eyes would have seen an oddly-elongated star moving overhead, if they'd happened to look. Eelesia spotted the faint glowing line of something entering the atmosphere.

"Slayer," a strange voice drawled, surprising the three.

A man with bleach-blonde hair and a big black leather coat stalked out of the shadows, followed by more than a dozen men and women with oddly-shaped faces.

"Little birdy told me the most interesting story," the man said. "Seems the slayer doesn't remember who she is. Can you believe that? Why, if she's forgotten how to slay, she's just ripe... for..." The man sniffed. "the picking... sodding hell?" The man sniffed again, and turned to one of his fellows. "They smell right to you?"

"Um, what?" Lyn said flatly.

The minion shrugged, and then the bleach-blonde man shrugged, and suddenly a baseball bat connected with Lyn's head, shattering into splinters as she went tumbling to the ground. The bumpy-faced minions moved with startling speed, seizing Zach and Eelesia with fantastic strength.

Lyn flipped up to her feet and lunged at the bleach-blonde man, striking out with a flurry of blows, but it was clear she was vastly overmatched in both strength and skill, even if she was almost as fast and clearly more graceful.

Zach struggled against the bumpy-faced woman that was holding him, but his strength was no match for the woman. She let out a feral roar and sank her fangs into Zach's neck. Then she pulled back, blinked at Zach's unblemished skin, and tried again with the same result. Her fangs sank in, but didn't penetrate.

Eelesia wasn't even bothering to struggle as a bumpy-faced man bit her over and over, with increasing frustration. Another bumpy-face was leering at her and fondling her naked breasts, while a third was giving up on trying to bite her thigh and began prodding her exposed sex with uncareful fingers. Eelesia merely endured with a stoic patience, as though she didn't have anything better to do, at least until the shuttle showed up. (This rather took the fun out of it, for the vampires.)

Lyn took a blow to the throat that would have killed a human and retaliated with a twisting double kick. The bleach-blonde man grabbed her ankle in mid-air and swung her around, smashing her down headfirst onto the edge of the streetcurb. Concrete cracked and sent chips flying when it struck Lyn's skull. Lyn swayed a bit as she stood up, but the dizziness was gone in seconds.

The bleach-blonde man caught Lyn's wrists and just held on, looking put out. "Right then, this is getting boring. No fun in it if nothing hurts you. What a bloody rip off."

"Hey, you hurt me plenty," Lyn complained.

"He means injured, Lyn," Zach said.

"What?" Lyn screeched. "What kind of damaged luck-head likes injury?"

"Hey, sod off, Not-Slayer," the bleach-blonde man huffed, tossing Lyn away where two bumpy-faces grabbed her and held her down.

"Boss, even if we can't feed on 'em, can we still have some fun with them," one minion suggested.

"Forget it," the one who'd tried to finger-rape Eelesia snarled. "There's no fun if they don't even struggle."

The bleach-blonde man was staring at Lyn's sprawled form with heavy-lidded eyes. "I dunno, I like a challenge."

"Aagk!" one minion suddenly cried before exploding into dust.

A hansome dark-haired man, dressed in black, was suddenly a storm of violence in their midst. The three Fae all took the opportunity to unleash a paralyzing electrical shock with their Utility Clouds. The man in black grabbed a large splinter from the broken baseball bat and slammed it into the chest of each of the twitching minions in turn.

Soon, there were more dust piles than minions.

"What are they? Constructs?" Zach wondered.

"Get lost, Spike," the man growled at the bleach-blonde.

"Oh? Or what, Angel?" Spike taunted. "You gonna..." Spike trailed off, staring at something above and behind Angel in bafflement. "What the bloody hell is that?"

Eelesia, Zach, and Lyn hurried up to the shuttle where it was settling to a gentle stop. The small transport didn't look like anything anyone had ever seen on any scifi TV show. It resembled nothing more than a particularly thick, cloudy, five-meter wide soap bubble. If one looked at it under a high-power microscope, one would see a fantastically-advanced example of meta-materials technology, but to casual observation there didn't seem to be any technology in the thing at all.

The three Fae all put a hand to the shuttle's outer membrane. The cloudiness - which was actually the ships store of radon reaction mass - pulled away from their hands as the inner and outer membranes bent to touch each other.

Angel and Spike were staring with expressions that were far to similar for either of their piece of mind.

"Hey, Mr. Poofy-Hair!" Lyn called over her shoulder. "Thanks for helping us, but we want to get out of here. Need a ride?"

Angel stared for another second, then dashed for the bubbleship. Eelesia and Zach were sucked through the membrane and into the ship, but Lyn waited with only her hand sunk through.

"Hey!" Spike exclaimed, giving chase.

Lyn held out her hand, and as soon as Angel took it, they were both sucked inside, leaving Spike to be blown off his feet by the downwash of ionized air as Eelesia mentally commanded the shuttle to lift off.

* * *

The sensation of being sucked into the flying bubble thing was possibly the weirdest pleasant sensation Angel had ever felt. And now he was sprawled on top of a very naked, magically-beautified Buffy, on something that felt halfway between an air-mattress and a water-bed, and even if she was currently being possessed by a chaos spell, she didn't seem to mind.

It made it kind of hard to remember why he was there.

"Buffy," Angel started, but she put a finger to his lips.

"I'm Lyn," she said. "I know I look like this Buffy person, but that was an accident. I'll be back to looking like me in a few days, once I have time to change my morph settings. Thanks for the help, but I'm not Buffy. Is there somewhere we should drop you off?"

"No, I need to go with you, wherever you're going," Angel said.

"Alright," Willow said from Xander's lap, and they were suddenly pressed down into the floor of the bubble as the ground shrunk away.

Angel managed to sit up, but the four of them were pretty bunched together at the bottom of the bubble. Xander and Willow, or whoever they thought they were, didn't seem to mind the closeness, but Angel was feeling a bit awkward. Not to mention that they'd just broken through the clouds and were still accelerating.

"Are we in space?" Angel asked, side-tracked by the view of the curving horizon.

"Nearly," Xander said.

Angel shook off his awe. "Listen, you are Buffy, and Xander and Willow. You dressed up as, whoever you think you are, for Halloween, but the costumes were sabotaged by a malicious magic-user."

Buffy looked confused and Willow seemed to be concentrating on controlling the bubble, but Xander looked thoughtful. Angel was relieved they weren't dismissing his claim out of hand, at least. Suddenly their weight lessened as the bubble ceased accelerating, and floating weightless, the bubble seemed a lot more roomy.

"You mention magic like its simple fact," Xander questioned.

"That's because it is," Angel said. "It is - "

But Angel never finished that sentence, because at that moment, the bubbleship passed out of Earth's shadow, and into direct sunlight. Angel had a moment to feel horror and to curse his own stupidity, before the flames took him.

* * *

"Luck!" Lyn swore as she caught the floating ashes in her Utility Cloud. "Did he just die?"

"I wouldn't think so," Zach said. "I mean, he was clearly a construct, so I doubt his consciousness was housed in... that." Zach gestured to the ball of ash.

"No," Eelesia said softly. "He had the full actual mass someone his size ought to, and now that mass is gone. I'll bet Lyn won't find anything but ordinary ash in his remains."

Lyn concentrated for a moment, probing with her Utility Cloud. "Leezee's right."

"But that's impossible," Zach complained.

"Yes," Eelesia agreed. "It was, literally, magic. I think maybe he was telling the truth. We're not us."

"I feel like me," Lyn said.

"Think about it," Eelesia said. "We have conclusive proof that we're not in our own universe. Perhaps we never left. There is no mechanism in our universe to allow us to do so."

"Oh. Oh!" Zach exclaimed. "But it is possible for a magical universe to, say, reach into the space of all possible humanoid beings and pull us out." Zach's excitement withered as he realized what he'd just said. "So we're stranded here. At least our homeship was copied here too."

* * *

The generation ship _Eliezera_ hung like a gleaming pearl against the blackness of space. The two-hundred kilometer long starship was shaped like an elongated ellipsoid, its pearlescent surface vast and featureless. In the universe it came from, the speed of light was an immutable physical law, as was conservation of momentum. There was no faster-than-light travel. No reactionless propulsion.

Like the shuttle, but on a vastly grander scale, the _Eliezera_ moved by excreting tiny quantities of charged radon gas from pores in its meta-material hull. That heavy gas was then accelerated along magnetic lines down the length of the ship, reaching just below the speed of light, allowing the ship to exploit the relativistic effects on the accelerated mass to gain a significant thrust from a small quantity of matter. Like most relativistic stardrives, the _Eliezera_'s could, at need, serve as a devastatingly powerful weapon.

The interior of the ship contained only one individual piece of technology bigger than a fingernail, and that was the fusion reactor. The vast majority of the room inside the _Eliezera_ was dynamically configurable living space. Fae had no bodily needs, and any luxury items could be synthesized on demand.

The _Eliezera_ was also a being in its own right, inhabited and controlled by a Giaa. A Generally Intelligent Artificial Agent. A synthetic mind, one of the children of the original machine superintelligence that engineered the Fae - the race Forever After Earth - to save humanity from evolution's mistakes. A Giaa was nothing like a human or a Fae, or even a god. At its heart, a Giaa was the distilled essence of the power to _understand_. It was by far the most dangerous and useful thing in the universe.

Or at least it would have been, if it had actually been there.

* * *

"It's like the _Eliezera_ is in a coma," Zach said as the three of them walked down a stark white corridor, the floor smooth and spongy under their feet as their skeletal magnetics simulated gravity. "It's alive, and all the sub-systems are working, but there's nobody home."

"So much for asking it how we got here," Lyn sighed.

"The entire ship is empty," Eelesia noted. "It is looking more and more likely that this is a magically-created copy of the _Eliezera_. Perhaps whatever power is responsible deemed a Giaa to be too powerful to bring into this universe. Huh, that's a funny thought."

"What?" Zach asked.

Eelesia shook her head. "There might be gods in this universe, and if there are, I wonder if a Giaa would recognize them as sapients it should care for, or just destroy them and take their power for its own use."

The three turned a corner. A vertical corner, now walking in a direction that was previously straight up. They soon came to a larger circular space and stopped. With no Giaa to construct an appropriate environment for them, they had to program the room themselves.

Eelesia raised two platforms from the center of the floor and ceiling, each a circle three meters wide, until there was only a one-meter gap between them. Then she tweaked the material settings until the two surfaces were softer than the most expensive memory-foam mattress on Earth, and had a texture like skin.

Zach played with the color and the lighting in the room until it felt cozier, while Lyn just used her skeletal magnetics to fly around the room doing lazy loop-de-loops. Zach made cabinets emerge from one wall, where the three of them put their body ornaments.

"There," Eelesia said shortly. "Done."

Lyn promptly tackled Eelesia off her feet and carried her onto one of the newly-made beds. The warm skin-like surface wibbled under Eelesia's back. It felt like laying on a giant boob, almost. Lyn kissed Eelesia fiercely, running one hand down between the redhead's legs and dipping into her folds.

Zach floated into the space between the beds to join them. He pulled Lyn's hips up and ran his glans through her labia, slowly pushing in as her wetness spilled out, until his hips met her butt. Lyn moaned and arched her back as she clutched Eelesia's head to her chest, where the redhead was busy suckling on Lyn's nipples.

Arousal worked a bit differently for Fae than it did for humans. Physically, unlike with humans, the aroused state of the organs was the default state. Males were always erect, unless specific stimulus caused them to go flaccid. Females always had an extended vaginal barrel, and could release a significant volume of lubricating fluid at will, in addition to the normal autonomic response. For both sexes, orgasms were easy to reach, and there was no recovery time between them. Female Fae did have wombs, but they remained dormant unless activated by a Giaa, and even then one had to opt-in to become a potential mother. Birth Control had a very different meaning to the Fae than it did to humans.

Lyn climaxed three times in the first two minutes, Zach twice, and they were barely getting started. Lyn slipped off Zach's shaft and floated up until she was sitting on Eelesia's face. Zach pressed himself against Eelesia and plunged his erection into her depths with a wet squelch.

Eight orgasms between the three of them and six minutes later, they reversed their magnetization and fell from one bed to the other. Eelesia sat up and rode Zach with infinite stamina. Lyn straddled Zach facing the opposite way, up on her knees, and resumed kissing Eelesia. Zach pushed a few fingers into Lyn's sex from below, eventually working up to his entire fist.

They didn't get tired. They didn't get sore. They didn't need to sleep. Their Utility Clouds could collect and reabsorb most of their lost moisture, and pull more from the air, without them having to think about it.

For the next two hours or so, the three Fae friends abandoned themselves to simple wholesome pleasure.

Then Rupert Giles smashed the bust of Janus and broke the spell. The three Fae passed out from the backlash, and Sunnydale Syndrome stopped protecting the _Eliezera_.


	2. The New and Improved Scoobies

**The New and Improved Scoobies**

Colonel Jack O'Neill stood on the bridge of the _Prometheus_, watching the alien starship get bigger in the window. He whistled softly.

"Boy am I glad I'm not the one who has to run around convincing hundreds of people that all they saw was a weather balloon," Jack commented. "How big did you say this thing was?"

"Approximately two-hundred kilometers in length, Sir," Samantha Carter replied. "You could fit the entire city of New York in there."

"I have never before seen a vessel with an appearance such as this," Teal'c contributed.

"It looks like a big bar of soap," Jack said flippantly.

"I want to know why they're not responding to our hails," Colonel Cauldwell commented.

Daniel Jackson said, "We don't know anything about what they're like or how they communicate. Maybe they can't hear us, or maybe they've been trying to hail us and we aren't noticing either."

"Carter, are the _Prometheus_'s engines powerful enough to tow that thing if we can't get them to move by asking nicely?" Jack asked.

Carter blew out a slow breath. "Maybe, Sir. But it'll be a tall order. Are we getting any sensor readings yet?"

"None of our systems are penetrating," the tech said, "and I'm not sure how to interpret what the Asgard system is telling me."

"Let me take a look," Carter said, leaning over the console. "Huh."

"Carter," Jack prodded.

"Sir, even the Asgard sensors can't make heads or tails of what that ship is made of, but I can tell you that there are no artificial gravity distortions or naquada, and I mean none at all," Carter reported. "The only concrete readings are at the very center of the ship, which reads like a Fusion plant."

"Radiation?" Colonel Cauldwell asked.

Carter shook her head. "Nothing you wouldn't get from a routine EVA. Still, I would postulate that whatever these aliens are, they stand up to cosmic radiation a lot better than humans do."

"Life signs?" Jack wanted to know.

"Sorry, Sir. The entire ship reads like a very large, very faint life sign," Carter said.

"Carter, are you tellin' me that thing is alive?" Jack asked.

"I can't say one way or the other, Sir," Carter replied.

The alien ship was now a vast pearly wall, curving away like a strange horizon. The _Prometheus_ pulled alongside, and began a slow orbit of the city-sized ship.

"Still no response to communication attempts, Sir. We're even flashing the running lights."

"Alrighty people," Jack said. "Carter, get started on figuring out if we can tow our guests for parking in the red zone. But if that doesn't pan out, what's our next move?"

"There are no seams," Daniel mused. "How do they get in and out of that thing?"

"Maybe they beam everything in or out," Colonel Cauldwell guessed.

"I would call that unlikely, Colonel," Carter said from the terminal where she was working. "If they had beaming tech, we'd have picked up the subspace signature by now."

"It's a slower than light starship," Daniel said suddenly. "It must have hidden its approach somehow, but if it can only travel at sublight, maybe the crew is still in stasis or something similar."

"If they're capable of building a ship as advanced as that thing looks, how could they not have hyperdrive?" Colonel Cauldwell asked.

"Technological progress isn't a linear monolithic ladder," Daniel said. "A culture's history often has more to do with what technologies they do or don't have, than anything else."

"Helm," Colonel Cauldwell ordered. "Take us down for a landing on the alien hull. See if that provokes a reaction."

* * *

Buffy was suddenly awake. She felt very strange, all floaty and with the tingly good feelings like she'd just had an hour-long post-slay bath, only moreso. She way laying on something soft and warm, and there was a somewhat less soft, warm pressure on various parts of her body.

The entire night ran through her mind like a dream, and for a few seconds, that's all it was. She slowly opened her eyes, and saw the other bed 'above' her, and became aware that the weight on her belonged to the naked bodies of her friends. The whole of the night came crashing down on her, and Buffy sat bolt upright with a scream.

"Angel!"

Her shout woke Xander and Willow. Willow blinked her eyes open to find herself half-pinned under a very naked Xander, who was staring at her. Xander blanched and leaped off Willow as though burned. He floated across the space between the two beds and bounced against the other one.

"Oh crap. Crap crap crap crap crap," Xander moaned. "Did we...? We... All three of us... Please tell me this is just a beautiful dream."

A wide-eyed Willow looked between panicked flustered Xander and horror-stricken Buffy. Her gaze strayed down Buffy's body and then down Xander's, and she blushed. Xander reflexively tried to hide his erection. Buffy jumped slightly when Willow put a hand on her shoulder.

"Buffy?" Willow entreated.

"Angel's dead," Buffy said numbly, then she blinked, finally registering the naked Willow next to her, and Xander trying futilely to cover his manhood. "Oh my god, we... I had sex with you!" Buffy looked at Willow. "I had sex with _you_!"

Willow ducked her head in embarrassment and mumbled, "Yeah, and it was all really nifty and amazing, too."

Xander ducked off the edge of the bed in an acrobatic flip, so only his upper body was visible to the girls. "Okay. Okay. We were all under a spell, right?"

"That was way more than just a spell! Oh god," Buffy fretted, scooching away from Willow and covering her chest with her arms. "This is too much."

Willow looked between her two friends, almost feeling betrayed. "I'm the shy nerdy one. Why am I the only one not freaking out about this? So we were possessed and had a wild kinky threesome. What's so bad about that?"

Xander's heart broke a little at the look Willow gave him, and his usual excuse just didn't hold water anymore. He was practically overflowing with attraction to Willow. Xander forgot all about hiding his erection and crawled over to Willow and gave her a hug.

"You're right, there isn't really much of the bad there," Xander said.

"Of course _you_ would say that," Buffy sighed, and abandoned her impulsive attempt at modesty, flopping back with her arms at her sides. "Well, if I can't freak out about the orgy, that means now I have to think about the other thing. Thanks for that."

"I'm sorry about Angel, Buffy," Willow said softly.

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut. "I'll deal."

Xander jumped against her, and Willow realized she'd put her hand on his manly shaft without realizing it. She snatched her hand back, face flaming, but a moment later she deliberately let her hand return there. Xander jumped again, and then slowly relaxed. Willow allowed herself a little naughty smirk.

"So..." Xander said after a moment.

"So," Willow said.

"So..." Buffy began.

"... We're on a fucking _spaceship_!" Xander exclaimed.

Buffy winced and propped herself up on her elbow. "I'm more worried about the part where we're not, you know, _human_ anymore."

"How much do you guys remember?" Willow inquired.

"I remember Zach Reon's whole life," Xander admitted. "But it's distant, like, it happened to me, but it happened to me before I was ever Xander."

"Me too," Buffy said. "Like I can suddenly remember all this stuff from before I was Buffy. I remember Lyn Rea-Val's whole life. It's actually really great, but jeez she was a pervert."

"Huh?" Willow questioned.

Buffy gave her a flat look. "Two words: Rape Garden."

"Oh right," Willow chuckled weakly. "Lyn loved those. To be fair, though, it _was_ fairly normal for most people to at least play around in the tamer outer tiers, of those places. It was kind of like going to the beach," Willow reasoned.

Buffy got a distant look in her eye and shuddered, but Willow couldn't tell if it was disgust or arousal. Probably a bit of both. Lyn's personality had been a lot like Buffy's, but she'd been born into the Fae and never knew anything else. Reconciling her upbringing with Buffy's wasn't going to be a smooth process.

"Ah, what about you Willow? How much of Eelesia's life do you remember?" Xander diverted.

"Same as you guys," Willow said, probing the back of her mind. "My Dreamlink is still there, and we're still instinctively using our skeletal magnetics to simulate weight..." Willow concentrated, and made her Utility Cloud smooth out her hair, clean it, and twine it into a braid. "Yeah, I can still do that, too."

"Why didn't we change back when the spell broke?" Xander wondered, focusing inward as well.

"I don't know," Willow said. "Oh, but I bet Giles will know something."

"I dunno Wills. Do we wanna tell the Watcher-man we're not human anymore?" Xander asked.

"Hey, guys," Buffy interrupted. She had her eyes closed. "I found those morph setting things. It's really easy to use. I think we should all use them to adjust the way we look until we can pass for our normal selves."

"Ooh, good thinking Buffy," Willow said, pulling out of Xander's embrace and settling in a meditative pose.

"Hey, um..." Buffy opened her eyes and looked between her two friends. "Is it just me or is it weird how _not_-weird it is that we're all naked? Or that Xander's sporting the erection of god himself? And that it seems perfectly normal?"

"It _was_ normal, for our, um, I guess 'Others'," Willow said. "Remember? Fae guys stay hard even when they're not turned on, probably 'cause of the whole hundred-percent-efficient digestion thing, so it's not like they'd ever need to get it down."

Buffy stared off into space for a second, and blushed faintly. "Oh, right. Lyn thought it was because limp cocks were ugly."

"Holy crap on a cracker!" Xander suddenly yelped, his eyes flying open. "Look in your morph settings, in the part here, over here." Xander sent what could best be described as a menu-path over the Dreamlink.

"We can become boys?" Willow squeaked. "And Xander can become a girl if he wants..."

"Ah, all in favor of forgetting we found that option?" Buffy asked quickly.

Willow and Xander both raised a hand.

"And moving on," Willow said, settling back into her meditative pose.

The three of them all spent nearly an hour tweaking their morph settings, seeing the results in a mental mirror. Willow was the last to finish. She confirmed her choices and was given a very concrete sense that her morph settings would reach their new targets in about six hours.

"So," Xander said. "What do we do now?"

* * *

"We've been ringin' the doorbell for an hour. Nobody's answering," Jack reported to the video screen. "Ma'am," he added belatedly.

Doctor Elizabeth Weir frowned in consideration. "Do you think it's safe to attempt to tow the ship into a higher orbit?"

"Carter's still running the numbers, but its not looking good," Jack said.

"Doctor," cut in the annoying tones of Richard Woolsey, "I am authorized to make a judgement call in this matter. A public uproar must be avoided. If towing the alien ship to a less conspicuous location is not doable, your orders are to board the alien ship by any means necessary and attempt to move the ship under its own power."

Jack groaned.

* * *

While they waited for their bodies to return to their normal appearances, Willow was delving into the _Eliezera_'s operating system, and Xander had sat and watched her for about ten minutes before he'd given into the urge to fly around the gymnasium-sized room in a superman pose. Buffy had gone wandering off, saying she felt like being alone for a bit. Willow was busy, and while she knew Xander cared about her, she also knew he didn't give two shits about Angel.

Buffy flew in a straight line, commanding the walls to melt away whenever they got in her way. Eventually she reached the outer hull and stopped. After a moment, she put a hand against the off-white surface. She knew how from Lyn's memories, so she pushed and made the hull pull her through.

Standing naked on the outside of the _Eliezera_ in hard vacuum was a surreal experience.

In particular, the silence was immense and oppressive, but also oddly soothing. Buffy faced the sun, realizing she could look right at it without pain, and let it warm her. When she looked away she didn't even have spots in her eyes.

Buffy picked a direction randomly and started walking, staring up at the Earth among the stars. Her tears boiled away as they formed, but the vapor was automatically caught by her Utility Cloud and reabsorbed.

Angel was dead. Pointlessly, randomly, idiotically, dead. Dead for no reason at all. Lyn's memories whispered that in reality that was the only kind of death there was, but that didn't really make Buffy feel better. Death _could_ have meaning, Buffy insisted, and Angel's death hadn't.

Buffy couldn't sigh without air to sigh with, but she made the motions.

She'd been walking for an hour and forty-eight minutes, which she was just aware of the moment she thought about it, when her doubly-superhuman eyes spotted an odd grey lump on the pearly horizon. Curious, Buffy lifted up and flew towards it.

* * *

They'd nearly lost Teal'c when they first walked out onto hull of the alien ship. One step off the loading ramp and his magnetic boots had launched Teal'c straight up. Fortunately, the _Prometheus_' loading ramp is under-slung, so instead of floating off into space, Teal'c just landed upside-down on the underside of the _Prometheus_ like a badass.

Jack couldn't make a watch-that-last-step joke. He just couldn't. Friggin' badass jaffa.

"It would appear my magnetic boots are malfunctioning, O'Neill," Teal'c intoned.

So, Carter did her stuff, and ended up having to nearly invent an entirely new magnetic boot design on the spot.

"Some of the material the alien hull is made of appears to be superconductive," Carter explained. "Superconductors are known to have unique properties when interacting with magnetic fields. I should be able to compensate..."

Once they got that issue sorted out, it was simple enough. Teal'c got the laser drill set up, and Carter got it working. A searing point of light began tracing a circle on the alien hull.

"Uh, guys," Daniel said. "Shouldn't that thing have at least made a groove by now?"

"Carter," Jack complained.

"I'm not sure, Sir," Carter responded, and switched com channels. "Prometheus, this is Carter. Can you scan the hull where we're attempting to cut through, with the Asgard sensors?"

Carter listened, then summarized for SG-1. "Whatever the hull's made of, it's_eating_ most of the laser energy, and reflecting the rest."

"Oh for cryin' out loud," Jack complained.

"This is actually fascinating, Sir," Carter enthused. "Despite the lack of subspace technology, in other ways this ship seems to be far more advanced than anything we've encountered before. If we can study and reverse-engineer this hull material..."

Carter went into technobabble mode, and Jack listened with half an ear while he tried to decide what to do next.

"Jack?" Daniel interrupted several moments later, sounding faint.

"Yes, Daniel?" Jack said.

"I think I might be hallucinating," Daniel said faintly, pointing to Jack's left.

Jack, Carter, and Teal'c turned their bulky space-suits towards where Daniel was pointing, and Jack's jaw dropped. Strolling towards them, as though they weren't in the middle of space on the _outside_ of a spaceship, was an unusually pretty but otherwise normal-looking petite blonde girl with a rich tan. Oh and not only was she not wearing a suit, but there wasn't a stitch on her at all.

The naked girl had an incredulous expression on her face, like _they_ were the ones doing something unbelievably ridiculous. She stared at the Prometheus for several long moments, then she turned to SG-1, threw her arms out, and exclaimed, "Since when does the Air Force have spaceships?"

* * *

(AN: If you're wondering, Buffy is touching SG-1's helmets with her Utility Cloud, and that's how they can hear her.)


	3. First Contact

**First Contact**

Willow was floating with her legs folded all lotus-like and her eyes closed, looking very inner peace-y, even if Xander knew she was giving her brain a workout, learning about the _Eliezera_. Xander had made a few walls melt to give him more room, and was having fun flying around like he had superpowers.

"Oh, wow," Willow said sometime later.

Xander looped around and floated up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Well don't leave me in suspense. What's up?"

Willow opened her eyes to the sight of Xander's manhood sticking up in front of her from between her legs. She felt her face heat, but didn't stop herself from taking it in her hands and caressing it. Xander tensed up at her back, but he didn't pull his hips away.

"Zach was more right than he knew when he said the _Eliezera_ was in a coma," Willow said. "The Giaa is missing. I can order the ship to do anything it already knows how to do, assuming I can find the command, but its intelligence, its awareness, its ability to make decisions and act on its own initiative, that's all gone."

"So, the ship's braindead, but you can be a surrogate mind for it?" Xander surmised distractedly as Willow's fingers played lightly around his glans.

The head of Xander's shaft, the membranous tissue, began to secrete lubricant as Xander became aroused, making his hardness slippery under Willow's hands. For Fae, getting wet wasn't just for women. Both sexes contributed to the lubrication.

"Well, not yet," Willow said, slowly tightening her grip. "But once I learn how, yes."

Xander gave her middle a squeeze. "That's my Willow."

Willow really wanted to turn around and kiss him, but she couldn't quite bring herself to. That seemed odd, since she already had her hands around his erection, but she supposed it was because that was further out of the context of what she had been used to - playing with his cock like she was doing was more of an Eelesia thing, but wanting to kiss Xander was just normal Willow.

Her fingers tightened around Xander's length, stroking up and down more firmly. Of course, Willow had fantasized about making love to Xander since she first learned about sex, but it had been a distant future dream, then. With Eelesia's experience in her head, and his glistening erection in her hand, fucking Xander's brains out _right now_ didn't seem impossibly out of reach anymore.

"Aah," Xander breathed into her neck. "Willow, I'm gonna... _uuuah!_"

Willow watched in delight as Xander's erection pulsed in her hands and spurted his white cum through the air in a series of gooey streams. The fluid sailed across the room and splattered on the wall, where it was immediately absorbed, and Xander's Utility Cloud pulled moisture from the air to replace the loss.

"Uh, Wills?" Xander said hesitantly. "You just gave me a handjob. Is there a reason you just gave me a handjob?"

"Do I need one?" Willow mumbled.

Xander pulled back and turned her around by her shoulders. "Uh, don't you think we should slow down here? What if you're just being... swept up in Eelesia's memories?"

Willow lifted her legs and squeezed Xander's hips with her knees. "So what if I am? Xander, I've wanted you for as long as I've been able to want _anyone_ in that way, the sexy way. Maybe I like that Eelesia makes me not afraid of my feelings anymore."

Xander dropped his head back and sighed. "My Zach memories are telling me that I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I guess it helps that he started out human, so he already went through this once." Xander shook his head and gave her a smile. "We've always loved each other, haven't we?"

"Always loved," Willow agreed softly.

"The Fae don't see a difference between friendship love and romantic love, do they," Xander mused distantly. "Take a romantic love, and subtract everything that makes up a friendship love, and what you're left with doesn't have any love in it at all. That's what Eelesia said to Zach, back when he was still adjusting."

Willow nodded seriously.

"We'll always be Xander and Willow, right?" Xander asked, gently taking her face in his hands.

"Oh yes," Willow sighed happily, "but we're Fae now, and I think we should act like it... is it okay if I sleep with Buffy?"

Xander went to a happy visual place, and Willow giggled.

"I'll take that as a yes," Willow said.

"Yeah, but, since when are you into girls?" Xander wondered, sliding his hands down to her waist.

Willow ducked her head. "I'm, um, not really with the sureness on that. I might have been doing the repressing thing, but it doesn't matter now. Fae are pansexual by design."

Xander winced at a couple of Zach memories that surfaced, but decided to put off dealing with the idea that he'd be attracted to guys now, for later. "Yeah that. Even so, you think Buffy will go for it?"

"I think I can persuade her," Willow mused. "She's a Fae now too, and we're already friends."

"Friends," Xander intoned. "Now with Benefits included in the standard model."

Willow giggled, and Xander pulled her close, trapping his erection between their bellies. He leaned in and kissed her, his lips warm and gentle, his tongue firm and probing. Willow melted into a figurative puddle of euphoria.

Xander slid his hands up her back onto her shoulders. He angled her slightly and lined up himself up, aiming his cock with his pelvic-floor muscles, which in Fae were more sophisticated that the human equivalent. Xander yanked Willow down by her shoulders, spearing her to the hilt.

It was a move that would have seriously hurt a human girl who hadn't been worked up to it with ages of foreplay, but for Willow there was nothing but a crashing burst of pleasure that rocked her body into orgasm.

"Eaaah! Uaaah. Ooooh!" Willow gasped.

Once her spasms stopped, Xander's hands gripped her butt and she moaned against his lips. Two thrusts and she felt him cum inside her, felt his body tremble in her embrace, but he barely slowed down. Willow curled her hips to meet his firm thrusts. Their pace was easy and steady, bringing orgasms every two minutes or so.

It took them each about a dozen orgasms before they got the hang of timing it so they climaxed together almost every time. At some point they flew back to the bed platforms in the center of the cavernous room.

Xander grunted and Willow gasped as they climaxed yet again. Willow kissed him and pushed him off of her. She turned over an lay flat on her front with her legs together.

"Do the thing," Willow breathed, referring to a shared Eelesia and Zach memory.

Xander straddled her butt and sank his length back into her. Willow's butt jerked up against his hips as she moaned happily. Xander laid himself down flat on top of her, taking her hands in his and pinning them down. Then he increased the pull of his skeletal magnetics until he was pressing down on her with something like five times his Earth weight and she was having trouble breathing.

Willow shuddered in orgasm, and he hadn't even started moving yet.

Xander shifted his hips and started pounding into her hard, letting his simulated weight do most of the work on the downstroke. He climaxed quickly and often, but Willow was cumming hard almost continuously. A human would have passed out from overstimulation in minutes, but Willow was just riding a high of ecstasy and exultation.

_Xander, Willow,_ a message came over their Dreamlinks, from Buffy. _We have a situation. You're not going to believe this._

Xander stopped fucking Willow upon his next orgasm, and they both went limp while the fog of orgasmic pleasure faded from their heads. Xander moved to get off his adorkable best friend, releasing his five-times simulated weight, and with a fleshy wibble, the bed launched them up like a slingshot. They bounced between the two beds a few times while Xander fumbled in surprise.

"Oops," he said with a goofy grin.

Willow snickered and looked at the image Buffy sent with her message. "Holy moley."

* * *

Buffy was baffled. There was a ship like something out of Star Wars parked right on the _Eliezera_'s hull, with big English letters proclaiming USAF, and a group of people in space suits. It was such an unexpected sight that she flung her Utility Cloud at their helmets and demanded, "Since when does the Air Force have spaceships?" before she could think twice.

She could only see the vaguest impression of faces through their visors, but the four space suits seemed to be staring at her in open-mouthed shock.

Buffy was suddenly very aware of the fact that she was completely naked. It took every scrap of willpower she had not to flinch and try to cover herself. Doing so wouldn't have even occurred to Lyn, and while Buffy would have preferred to confront these soldier-astronaut-whatevers clothed, it was too late for that now. The least embarrassing option was for her to pretend she didn't know any better, like the Fae she now was, and she was wary of showing weakness to unknown military people in any case.

"Ah," one of the spacesuits said, sounding like a woman's voice.

"Are you guys seein' this?" a man's voice said inside another helmet.

"Indeed," a deep male voice said inside a third helmet.

"Ah, it could be a telepathic projection or some other psionic effect," the woman's voice said uncertainly. "I can't imagine how else we'd be able to hear her, or how else she could even be out here. Unless she's a robot - no, the radio logs in my suit don't show a transmission."

"You military guys believe in psychic stuff?" Buffy asked curiously.

The woman's suit jerked, like she'd startled. "Uh, psionic, and yes, we've seen several cases of - "

"Carter!" the man's voice barked.

"I'm not a projection, by the way," Buffy said. "This here's the real me."

"But we're in hard vacuum!" the woman, Carter, exclaimed. "How are you surviving? And how are we hearing you?"

"I'd rather not say just yet," Buffy said. "No offence or anything, but I don't know if you'll use that knowledge against us, yet."

_No way,_ came Xander's reply over her Dreamlink. _Hang tight. We are so on our way._

_You guys haven't found clothes, have you?_ Buffy sent back.

_No, why?_ Willow sent.

_Because I'm still naked out here, and I'd rather not have you guys show up clothed and make me look weird,_ Buffy replied.

A third suit stepped forward. "Um, hello. My name is Daniel Jackson, of SG-1. You can hear and understand us?"

"Duh," Buffy said. "So, Daniel. Nice to meet you. I'm Buffy. What can I do for you?"

Buffy put on her best irreverent act and sauntered over to the big spindly laser thingy, breezing passed the bulky spacesuits as Daniel floundered.. "This thing looks all gizmo-y. What's it for?"

"Oh for cryin' out loud!" the first man's voice grumbled. "Please tell me this isn't your ship."

"Yep," Buffy said, popping the 'p'.

The spacesuit identified as Daniel Jackson stepped forward again. "Well, in that case, um, Buffy, on behalf of SG-1, the United States of America, and the planet Earth, we'd like to know more about you, and your ship, and establish peaceful relations if possible."

"Ahem."

"And," Daniel added quickly, "politely request that you move your ship somewhere less visible from the surface of the Earth."

Buffy blanched and created a message in her Dreamlink, _Willow? Can you figure out how to make the Eliezera move yet? Before someone planetside decides we're an alien invasion?_

_Crap, why didn't I think of that? Um, maybe? Give me a few minutes,_ Willow replied.

"We're working on it," Buffy said. "The _Eliezera_ - that's our ship - is damaged."

"Great," the man's voice groaned.

"How big is your crew?" the woman asked.

"I guess it's just the three of us," Buffy said.

"You can run a ship this size with only three crew?" the woman gasped.

"Actually, it's designed to run without _any_ crew," Buffy said blithely. "But like I said, it's damaged."

"Well folks," the man's voice cut in before Carter could have a geek-fit, "this is going well, wouldn't you say? How's about we take this somewhere we can talk face to face, Miss Buffy? Can we convince you to come aboard the _Prometheus_ for a chat?"

Buffy thought that over. These SG-1 people seemed nice enough, and she was curious about where their spaceship came from. There was no way to know for sure, but they really didn't look like they had even basic nanotech. That wouldn't have meant anything before Halloween, but to Lyn, being pre-nanotech was like not having discovered electricity yet, only worse. If that was the case, there was absolutely nothing they could do to harm her, and probably no way for them to hold a Fae against their will.

"Alright," Buffy said. "As soon as my fr-fellows get here, we'll come in and talk."

"Carter, see to setting up a meeting room in the cargo bay. Full hazmat protocols," the man ordered.

"Yessir." Carter turned and tromped back up the cargo ramp.

* * *

"So, " Jack said, rocking back on his heels. "Howcome you know what the Air Force is?"

Buffy winced. "Ah, well, um..."

"We come from an alternate Earth, actually," a softer feminine voice said from behind him.

"Gah!" Jack yelped, stumbling as he spun around in his bulky spacesuit.

Standing off to the side, Jack saw two new naked people, a red-haired girl and a brunette boy, both with physiques like a freakin' centerfold. The boy, of all things, had a hardon that would make even Jack feel a little insecure. He sighed. Why did SG-1 always get the weird ones?

Jack radioed Carter. "Carter, our guests are here."

"The protocols are in place, Sir," Carter replied. "Go ahead and show them in."

Jack had Teal'c take the nude aliens into the sealed room, while he and Daniel went and changed out of their suits. Fifteen minutes later, SG-1 was cleared to go in. Buffy and her two fellows were sitting on one side of the table they'd had set up. Buffy and the well-endowed boy were looking around curiously, while the red-head was sitting still with her eyes closed.

"Sorry for the wait," Daniel began. "Before we start, may we offer you clothing?"

Buffy and the boy shared a look.

"Sure," the boy said. "When in Rome, and all that."

Jack sent an airman for a few sets of BDUs.

"That's right," Daniel said. "You're from an alternate earth?"

"Well, technically only Xander and Willow are from Sol," Buffy said. "I was actually born in Procyon."

"You mean the star?" Carter asked. "The white binary system eleven light-years from Earth?"

"That's the one," Buffy confirmed.

"We haven't had an Air Force in millennia," the red-head said without opening her eyes. "But we know what it is, and we know you shouldn't have spaceships in the twentieth century."

"What year is it, in your universe?" Carter asked.

"5189, by your calendar," the red-head said, eyes still closed.

"Your Earth never encountered the Goa'uld?" Daniel asked.

Buffy's face scrunched up. "Goa'what?"

That was when the airman arrived with extra BDUs for their guests. The red-head finally came out of her trance or whatever, revealing startlingly green eyes. Buffy held her BDUs up at arms length in obvious distaste, before shrugging and pulling them on.

Once they were dressed, the boy clapped his hands together. "So, first things first. How about some introductions?"

"Of course," Daniel agreed. "I am Doctor Daniel Jackson, archaeologist and linguist. This is Colonel Jack O'Neill, the leader of our team. Major Samantha Carter, astrophysicist. And that is Teal'c, jaffa warrior and freedom fighter. Together, we're SG-1, and this is the _Prometheus_."

"Cool," the boy said. "I'm Xander Reon. I'm not much with the titles."

"I'm Buffy Reaval. My specialty is ass-kicking," Buffy said cheerily.

"My name is Willow Rin," the red-head said. "I was a researcher, and a teacher. I guess now I'll be a starship brain. Our race is called the Fae, and right now you're parked on the hull of the generation ship, _Eliezera_."

Jack raised an eyebrow at Buffy's so-called specialty. She didn't look like she could take Cassie Fraiser in a fight. and barely looked older than her, too. He hadn't noticed before, because her body was very obviously developed, not to mention the surrealness of her being out in space like that, but in the oversized BDUs she looked like barely more than a child. They all did.

"Aren't you all a little young to have your own big honkin' spaceship?" Jack found himself asking.

Willow smiled mysteriously. "I'm six-hundred seventy-four, Colonel O'Neill."

Xander put up a hand. "Two-hundred thirteen."

"Forty-seven," Buffy said sheepishly.

"You're kidding me," Jack said.

"We know it's possible for sufficiently advanced medical technology to rejuvenate aged human tissue, Sir," Carter said. "Maybe they have something like a sarcophagus, only they've solved the side effects."

But Willow shook her head. "We're not dependent on anything so crude as an external treatment, Major Carter. Fae simply do not age. Nor do we starve, or thirst, or as you've seen, suffocate."

"I find it interesting that you call yourselves 'fae'," Daniel commented. "Where did that name come from? Is it your nation?"

"It is our species," Willow told them. "The name was really a bit of whimsy, in the beginning. We are the race Forever After Earth. F-A-E. Fae. Humanity needed a new name, after we threw out the grossly inefficient and dangerously flawed biology that evolution created and started from scratch, building bodies worthy of the conscious minds they housed."

"Of course!" Carter blurted in realization. "It's bio-engineering. It's _all_ bio-engineering, but at a level we've never even imagined."

"_Molecular_ engineering, actually," Willow corrected. "Ooh! Ooh! I got it!"

"Got what?" Jack asked suspiciously.

"I just figured out how the _Eliezera_'s navigation systems works," Willow said excitedly. "Give me a sec to reconfigure the thrust envelope, so's I don't rip your ship apart when I turn on the stardrive, and I'll park us at the Lunar L2."

"We appreciate that," Jack said dryly as Willow closed her eyes and went still.

"You're in mental contact with your ship?" Carter asked the other two.

"Sort of," Xander said. "It's more like having a high-bandwidth internet connection in our heads, but the interface is seamless and instinctual, just like the rest of our biology. We call it the Dreamlink."

"I thought you said you couldn't move your ship because it was damaged," Jack reminded them.

"It is," Buffy said flatly. "Our ship's supposed to be controlled by a Giaa, but the _Eliezera_'s was destroyed when we came here."

"Imagine our ship was a person in a vegetative state," Willow said distantly. "What I'm doing would be like trying to make that person perform a complicated task by puppeteering them but only being able to make them move one or two muscles at a time."

"A Giaa is an AI?" Carter asked.

"After a fashion," Willow said distractedly.

"Ah, are you sure you've got a handle on this?" Daniel asked nervously.

"If it was anyone but Willow, I'd be worried," Xander said with smug pride.

Jack smiled inwardly. "Relax Danny-boy. I'm sure Cauldwell will start hollering if Willow hits a mailbox."

Buffy snorted. "So what's the deal with these Gaga-Olds you were talking about?"

Daniel winced. "Goa'uld. And they're a race of evil parasitic body-snatchers, who rule like warlords over a large percentage of the galaxy. They call themselves gods..."

One long explanation later, and Xander only had one question. "Hyperdrive actually works in this universe? Awesome!"

Seeing an opening, Carter pounced. "Clearly, we both have technology the other is interested in. Would you be interesting in making a few trades?"

"Ah, we're not going to say no," Xander hedged, "but we don't really know what we can offer you yet, or what we can and can't do with anything you give us. We're effectively crippled without our Giaa, and we're going to need time to learn to function without one. And as amazing as Willow is, she can't ever really replace a Giaa."

"I see," Carter said, disappointed.

"Is there anything we could offer you that you're in need of right now, in exchange for a promise that the _Eliezera_ will aid Earth in the event of hostile alien action?" Daniel asked.

"Of course we'll protect the Earth!" Buffy blurted. "Right guys?"

Xander and Willow nodded.

"We're stranded here," Xander said. "If I understand how we got here, this isn't even our multiverse, let alone our universe, and there's no way to go back. So, your Earth is it, for us."

Daniel nodded. "Thank you. I'm sure a lot of our people will be glad to hear that."

"If that's true, how did you come to be here?" Carter asked curiously.

Willow opened her eyes an let out a little, "Whew."

"Welcome back, Wills," Xander said with a smirk. "We parked?"

"Yup!" she chirped. "To answer your question, Major Carter, we aren't sure of the exact chain of events, but as near as we can tell, we were magically summoned."

Cater blinked. "What do you mean by 'magically'?"

"I mean, something caused the magic of this universe to reach out, find us in our universe, and edit us into being in this universe," Willow said.

"You seriously think it was magic?" Carter asked doubtfully.

Willow expression turned incredulous. "Didn't you say you'd already studied genuine psionic phenomena? You have spaceships that violate conservation of momentum and temporal causality. How can you doubt the existence of magic?"

Carter sighed. "These things all function due to replicable scientific principles. Some of your technology would undoubtedly seem like magic even to some modern humans, but just because we don't understand something doesn't make it magic."

Willow rolled her eyes. "Well, d'oy. What makes it magic is that those principles you mention cannot be reduced to the quantum math. They are special-case rules imposed on this multiverse externally. You don't have a forcefield generator in your brain, so if you move something with telekinesis, it's because the universe is editing kinetic energy into existence in exception to the natural progression of the quantum math."

"That's a limited view," Carter insisted. "There is more than one fundamental physical equation, each a component of the panspacial whole, interacting through measurable rules."

"You just described irreducible physical laws bound by bridging laws," Willow rejoined. "That is a fallacy unless you're explicitly postulating magic. My old universe has the same fundamental physics that yours does, and yet in my universe hyperspace doesn't exist. It was... _tacked on_, to your universe. That makes it magic."

"But we can travel hyperspace through well-understood, completely physical means," Carter shot back.

"Sufficiently analyzed magic is still magic, Major Carter," Willow said sagely. "Mistaking magic for technology is no less a scientific sin than mistaking technology for magic."

"Is anyone else getting a headache?" Buffy cut in. Willow pouted at her.

"Oh yeah," Jack sighed. "They might as well be arguing about whether a tree makes a sound if it falls in an empty forest. Carter, you can argue semantics later."

"Yes Sir," Carter grumbled.

"Okay, so I can't actually get headaches," Buffy was saying. "It's a saying with words thing."

"Can we go back to you folks using your ship to defend the Earth?" Jack asked, sitting forward. "I wanna hear about your weapons. You wouldn't happen to have some big honkin' space guns?"

"Technically, our ship doesn't have any weapons," Xander said.

"No weapons?" Jack repeated.

Xander grinned. "No, but why would we need them? The _Eliezera_'s stardrive can cut a planet in half if the thrust vectors are configured for it. A fully populated generation ship can accelerate at half a G, if it needs to. Do you think Gould shields can stand up to that kind of force?"

"Holy Hanna," Carter whispered.

"And, if the Goa'uld mostly use energy weapons, they can fire on the _Eliezera_ all they want. All they'd be doing is giving us a power boost," Willow said.

Jack whistled. He'd pay good money to see that Fae ship slicing up a fleet of ha'taks. Especially if he got to gloat.

* * *

"Well, that went pretty well," Daniel commented, as SG-1 watched the three Fae walk out onto the _Eliezera_ in nothing but their new BDUs, carrying an SGC subspace radio.

Buffy, Xander, and Willow walked a short ways, and then simply sank through the pearly hull like it was the surface of a particularly vicious pond.

"Well, I guess that answers how they get in and out of their ship," Carter said, wide-eyed.

"Alright, kids," Jack said, rocking back on his heels. "Time to report in."

* * *

"That went pretty well, right?" Buffy asked as they flew down a miles-long corridor the size of an eight-lane freeway, her hideous green jumpsuit flapping in the wind.

"I think they bought it," Xander said. "I'm still stuck on the part where there've been alien invasions and nobody noticed. I mean, people are _used_ to ignoring vampires and stuff, 'cause they've always been around, but evil alien spaceships?"

"I should be able to set up a program to operate the radio they gave us," Willow changed the subject. "I'll need to write some code from scratch, but we'll be able to call them or answer their calls as long as the radio is on the _Eliezera_, no matter where we are."

"Good. 'Cause my mom has got to be freaking that I never came home last night," Buffy said.

"We could always land the shuttle in your backyard and tell your mom you were abducted by aliens," Xander suggested with a grin.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah, I was abducted by aliens, and my best friends are pod people."

"Well, technically..." Willow started

"Nyah!" Buffy held up a hand. "I don't want to think about that."

They swooped into a turn and eventually arrived at the room they'd woken in. It was as good a place as any. Willow flew to one wall and made an anchor stand for the radio. Setting it securely in place, she sat in the air and closed her eyes.

Buffy fidgeted in her BDUs. As at odds with her normal way of thinking as it was, she still couldn't help feeling like she'd just rather be naked than wear the thing. But Willow hadn't found the synthesization algorithms yet, so it was all she had to wear home

Xander turned to her with a goofy grin. "So! Wanna have sex while we're waiting on Willow?"

Buffy stared. Buffy blinked. "Xander!"

"What?" Xander asked innocently.

"We are not having sex!" Buffy exclaimed.

"And why not?" Xander questioned, folding his arms.

Buffy sputtered. "Because!"

"Because why?" Xander repeated.

Buffy's mouth worked soundlessly until she finally slumped and said, "Because I don't know if it's me or Lyn, that wants to. It feels like half my thoughts are hers, now. I'm afraid of what I might let myself do."

Xander floated towards her and pulled her into a hug. Buffy accepted it, trying hard to ignore how awkward and wrong it felt to have clothes between them.

"We really are Fae now," Xander murmured. "We've got to accept that, or we'll just drive ourselves crazy. I know you remember, just like I do. You don't need to be afraid. You can let go."

Buffy pushed him away. "I can't. I'm not even sure what's me and what's not, right now. I need to process."

Xander looked at her sadly. "What is so terrible about turning to your friends for comfort and release?"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore, Xander," Buffy said firmly. "I'm going to go wait with the shuttle."

Buffy backflipped and flew off into the ship. Xander watched her go and sighed.

"Don't worry, Xander," Willow said softly. "I'll work on her. She'll come around."

* * *

A phone rang, and was picked up. "Yes?"

"What have you found out?" came the voice of Vice President Kinsey.

"SG-1 claims to have made peaceful contact with the alien ship. They brought three aliens on board the Prometheus, talked for time, and then released the aliens."

"Of course they did," Kinsey snarled. "Acquisitions?"

"None, sir. Only a promise to combat any hostile Goa'uld ships that enter our space."

"Well, I suppose that's something," Kinsey grumbled.

"There's more. Our asset tracked a small object leaving the alien ship. It made landfall in California thirty minutes ago. The SGC do not seem to be aware of this."

Kinsey swore colorfully.

"Shall I mobilize a squad?"

"ASAP," Kinsey ordered. "The SGC's let a foothold situation slip through their fingers. These aliens have landed potential infiltrators on American soil. This is our chance to show the SGC for the fools they are."

"I'll see it gets done."


	4. Back To Sunnydale

**Back To Sunnydale**

Flickers of flame licked around the transparent hull of the shuttle as it shot down towards the west cost of North America. Willow was floating in the center of the bubble, concentrating on keeping them on course, and Xander had his chin on her shoulder with his arms around her waist, while Buffy sat on the bottom of the bubble.

Buffy's skin tingled pleasantly as the interior of the shuttle heated up into the six-hundreds. That was one thing about being Fae that she definitely liked. Heat always felt like standing in front of a heater on a cold winter night, and cold always felt like a blast of chill on a sweltering summer day. Unless she actually reached temperatures that were dangerous for her, but she wasn't planning to go cave diving in a volcano any time soon.

Of course, the shuttle could regulate its internal temperature easily, but there was no point in wasting the energy to do that when it wasn't necessary.

"So, where are we going to land this thing?" Xander wondered as Sunnydale came into view below them.

"I was thinking we could hide it in the garage at my house," Willow said. "But it's already morning, and getting it in there would be kinda conspicuous - oh no! We're late for school!"

"We can still make it before lunch," Buffy said. "Meeting in the library after school. We need to tell Giles what's going on."

"If you say so, Buff," Xander said.

"Sure is a good thing we don't need to sleep, huh?" Willow chirped.

Buffy made a noncommittal noise, looking down through the bottom of the shuttle. "There's my house. I need to check in with my mom. I'll see you guys later."

Buffy was sucked through the hull of the shuttle and took up a skydiver pose as she fell towards the town below. Her back yard was a small target, but the BDUs caught a lot of air, so aiming wasn't too difficult. At the last second, she flipped over and landed on her feet. Dirt and grass flew up from a small crater under her feet.

A non-Slayer Fae could have done the same thing, but their landing would have been much less dignified. Fae were about three times stronger than a human of equal muscle mass, but that wasn't enough strength to stick a landing like that without going face-first into the sod. Buffy barely noticed the extra strength under the power of the Slayer, though.

Buffy stood up and headed towards the back door.

Her mom was on the phone when she came in, with the police it sounded like. Buffy winced. Looks like she was home just in time. It was about as bad as she imagined it would be. Her mom was relieved, and furious, and concerned. Buffy was hugged, and scolded, and grounded.

Finally, Buffy headed upstairs to get changed for school, her mom asking, "And what are you _wearing_?"

Buffy deliberately misinterpreted the question. "I know, right? It's completely fugly, the colors all wrong for me and that's just to start with. I mean, I don't do baggy, and how can something this horrendous not even be comfortable? Isn't that like a rule? And..."

Joyce eventually waved her on, shaking her head.

Going into her room, Buffy shut the door and immediately _shredded_ the BDUs with her Utility Cloud. She sighed in relief as the scraps of green cloth fell to the floor.

Buffy looked down at the carnage thoughtfully. Ripping through the cloth was much easier than it should have been. The BDUs were made of sturdy stuff. Buffy knew that her Utility Cloud was as much a part of her as her muscles were. Did that mean the powers of the Slayer extended to the new parts of her too?

"Great," Buffy grumbled to no one in particular. "Even my Calling is rubbing my face in it. Fine! I get it! No more human Buffy. Still..." Slayer strength in her Utility Cloud could really come in handy.

Buffy went to her closet and got dressed. Underwear. Pants. Blouse. Light jacket. Shoes. Firmly ignoring how awkward she felt being fully dressed, Buffy grabbed her school things and rushed off. It wasn't uncomfortable, exactly, but even just her underwear felt awkward, like she was going out in a cumbersome disguise. That was a good analogy, actually. She felt the same way about a nude body that she did about a nude face.

She could probably get used to clothes again, eventually, but the worst part was, Buffy wasn't sure she wanted to.

* * *

After Willow landed the shuttle in a patch of woods near their neighborhood, and collapsed it into storage mode - a dense opaque sphere about the size of a beachball - so they could hide it under some bushes, Xander snuck in to his room and changed for school. Unfortunately, the modern fashion for male clothing designs was to pretend the penis didn't exist. That just wasn't going to work, so Xander had to improvise.

With his erection in its usual place flat against his abs, he could hide it with a combination of baggy pants, a loose shirt, and a tucked-in undershirt. He studied his reflection and decided it was a passable solution. Unfortunately, the flex of his waistband as he walked, while not really pleasant, was enough stimulation to make him wet. He didn't think he was in danger of creaming his shirt, but there was going to be a visible dampness.

Finally, he hit on the idea of actively using his Utility Cloud to continuously dry and clean his undershirt. It wasn't perfect, but Xander would be able to get through the day without incident.

He met Willow for the walk to school. She was dressed more daringly than he'd ever seen her, before Halloween, in what could almost pass for a Naughty Schoolgirl outfit if the red pleated skirt was a little shorter and she tied the black tanktop off to bare her middrift.

Xander slung an arm around her waist and they set off. "That's not your usual look."

"Well, I was looking through my clothes, and I just started daydreaming about that old cliche of finding yourself naked in class, only... it just seemed funny, now," Willow said. "Like, so what? I don't need clothes. They're only wearing clothes 'cause compared to me they're cripples. Which is a horrible thing to say and I shouldn't even think like that because its not their fault and - "

Xander cut her off by pulling her around and kissing her deeply. Willow pretty much melted instantly, giving him a dreamy smile when he pulled back.

"No, I get it," Xander assured her.

"Right," Willow said as they kept walking. "Well, if I could turn up _naked_ in class and not die of embarrassment, I figured I could handle wearing something less with the confine-y-ness than my usual stuff."

Xander nodded gave her a grin. "So, you think Snyder will give us detention?"

"Maybe we can be sneaky," Willow suggested.

"Way to keep hope alive, Wills."

Willow giggled.

* * *

A series of planes landed in California, each bringing a covert NID operative. They converged in a base only a few hours from Sunnydale, and one man efficiently took charge.

Areas of interest were highlighted on maps. Photos smuggled off the _Prometheus_ were passed around.

"These are possible images of the alien insurgents, but we'd be fools to trust their word to the SGC, so stay sharp for possible unidentified hostiles. NID private assets tracked their landing craft to this location. We are unsure of their combat capabilities, but the reports claim they could survive in the vacuum of space, so the boys downstairs are eager to get a closer look at them."

Plans were made. Assignments were given. And black SUVs rolled out.

* * *

Walking through the school was an adventure and a half for Xander. It was like when he'd first started noticing girls, only turned up to eleven. And he wasn't just noticing girls. He was noticing _everyone_. Thankfully for his peace of mind, he had Willow to focus on, and years of experience disliking one of the most physically attractive girls in the school. Who'd've thought he'd ever be grateful for Cordelia?

"I think we should go straight to the classroom and hide there," Willow said. "Eating lunch is gonna make it too easy for Snyder to find us."

Xander nodded. _Buffy, we're heading to class early and hiding out. Where are you?_ he sent.

_Already there. I had the same idea. I came in through the roof. Snyder is prowling the entrances,_ Buffy replied.

"Okay, no using the front doors, check," Xander said.

He and Willow went around the back of the school and Willow unlocked a seldom-used door with her Utility Cloud. When they made it to the empty classroom, they found Buffy reclining in one of the desks with her eyes closed. Xander and Willow slid into their usual seats.

"So how'd it go with your mom?" Xander asked.

"Was she mad?" Willow inquired.

Buffy sat up and opened her eyes. "I'm grounded for the weekend. What about you guys?"

Xander shrugged. "Not like my parents bother to keep track of me."

"Mom and Dad are in Chicago this week," Willow said simply.

* * *

Buffy pushed through the swinging doors into the library, calling out, "Giles?"

There was small crashing sound from Giles' office as the man himself stumbled out into the library proper. He looked very relieved to see the three of them.

"Buffy! Are you alright?" Giles asked. "Your mother called me this morning. She said you never came home."

"We're okay," Buffy said, glancing at Xander. "Some of us more than others, but yeah _we're_ fine. Angel... Giles, Angel's dead."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Buffy..."

"Giles, what _happened_ last night?" Buffy demanded.

Giles polished his glasses while Willow and Xander took a pair of seats. Buffy crossed her arms and gave her Watcher an entreating look.

"I take it you three were transformed into your costumes last night?" Giles asked.

Three nods.

"Well, you see..." And the story came out, about a man called Ethan Rayne and a spell of chaos that affected everyone who bought costumes at his shop. Apparently Cordelia stopped by the library to complain about the craziness, and that's how Giles had figured out the connection to Ethan's shop. "...so I confronted him, and I was able to persuade him to break the spell. After that everyone seemed to be back to normal."

Buffy's fingers dug into her ribs. Willow put up a hand, looking hesitant.

"Um, Giles?" Willow said. "We kind of, um, aren't. Back to normal, I mean."

"Oh dear. How so?" Giles asked. "You seem to be yourselves?"

"We remembered who we are when the spell broke, and I got my Slayer powers back," Buffy said. "But we're still what our costumes made us."

Giles polished his glasses again. "And what is that? Cordelia seemed to think you were all, er..."

"Yeah," Willow cut in. "Um, their looks were a lot with the misleadingness. We apparently dressed up as engineered super-humans from the distant future, and now we kinda still are."

"Good lord! And you're sure these effects aren't wearing off?" Giles asked.

Buffy strode over to the weapons cage. "Pretty freaking sure, Giles."

Buffy unlocked the cage with her Utility Cloud, and then pulled one of the cheaper daggers into her hand. She spun the knife in her grip, faced Giles, and rammed the point into her eye as hard as she could.

"Bloody fucking buggering sod!" Giles yelped, diving forward.

Buffy hissed in pain, quickly pulling the mangled blade from her eye socket, allowing her perfectly intact eyeball to return to its normal shape. The pain vanished almost as soon as the metal was no longer touching her, but she still reflexively rubbed her eye with her free hand as she held out the ruined dagger for Giles' inspection.

"Okay, that was kinda funny," Xander snickered. "Mean, but funny as heck."

"Yes, the Watcher is having a heart attack," Giles said faintly. "How very amusing."

Buffy blushed in embarrassment. "I should've warned you. Sorry."

Giles took the dagger, prodding at the warped steel, before tossing it onto the table and examining Buffy's eye with careful concern. "Remarkable."

Buffy caught herself about to nuzzle her cheek into Giles' hand and only barely kept a panicked expression off her face. Oh she _so_ didn't need _that_. Giles was her Watcher! And a grown-up! He was a fatherly-type figure, and _old_. He was - younger than Lyn.

Buffy's internal rant stalled as she looked up at Giles' concerned face. The glasses. The worn lines. The hints of grey hair. The image that was simply and purely Giles. Except, he was younger than Lyn. The irredeemably grown-up Giles was _younger than Lyn_. Suddenly, those signs of passing years on his face didn't seem like a fundamental aspect of her Watcher's being, but instead like the first visible beginnings of a fatal genetic disease that would slowly destroy everything Giles was.

Her mind felt split in two, like she was seeing double. Immortality was the lure of the enemy. Immortality was the inevitable conclusion of succeeding at _not dying_. Souls were the fundamental core of what made a person. Souls were an arbitrary bit of magic tacked on to her particular universe. Seeing double. Seeing double.

Buffy wrenched away from Giles and ran her fingers into her hair. "I'm fine, Giles. No damage. No damage ever again, now, unless some demon figures out how to throw me into the sun."

"Throw you into - good lord." Giles stumbled into a chair across from Xander and Willow.

_Willow,_ Buffy sent. _I want your priority for the Eliezera to be finding the treatment facility._

_It already is,_ Willow replied, smiling. _Well, after I find the refueling routines, but yeah, I've been looking._

"So, G-man, howcome we're still all with the high-tech super-bodies?" Xander asked. "Not that I'm complaining or anything. Being all vampire-proof and batman-can-breathe-in-space is just niftykeen with me."

"I - I don't know," Giles admitted. "Any number of things might have interfered with the spell to make the effects permanent, but it would have had to have been something with considerable power - wait, what was that about space?"

"Um, yeah, we have a spaceship," Willow said. "That's where we were last night. It stayed when the spell broke, too. And that's not even the important part."

One explanation of the Air Force starship and the Goa'uld and secret alien invasions, and Giles was polishing his glasses again. But impending doom was a way of life when one lived on the hellmouth.

"Goa'uld. Goa'uld," Giles murmured. "Why does that ring a bell?"

Giles vanished into the stacks for a bit, and soon came back with a big book with Egyptian-looking thingies on the cover. "Yes, here we are. _The Collected Journals of the Watchers of Egypt, Volume One_. I'm afraid my Ancient Egyptian is a bit rusty, however."

Buffy leaned over Giles' shoulder as he flipped the old tome open. Willow climbed onto the table with a quick cat-like move on Giles other side. A quick thought over her Dreamlink, and suddenly the incomprehensible writing was as easy to read as English.

"I can read it for you, Giles," Willow offered. "Our ship has a complete database of all known languages, linked right into our heads."

"Good lord."

"This is a Goa'uld," Willow said, pointing to a charcoal sketch of a creepy snake-like thing. "It says here that this species of demon was the true forms of the Egyptian pantheon. They burrow into a human host through the neck and possesses them. The human survives, but loses all control of their body. Wiggy. Um, it says the victim gains the magic of the demon, but the demon can't use its magic without a host, and the magic stays with the host even if the demon leaves."

Willow turned the page, revealing another sketch, this one of a standing stone ring with odd symbols all around its face. "It says one of these Goa'uld, Ra, the god of the sun, brought a portal to the world of man. The name here translates to 'Stargate'. There are a bunch of notes about how the Watchers thought it might work, but it doesn't look like they could agree on anything."

Willow turned another page. "It says that Ra ruled in tyranny for generations, until one day, a beautiful young woman was taken to become the host of one of Ra's servants. The very next day, this woman was called as the Slayer, and the Slayer Essence destroyed the demon, freeing her. It says that the Watchers didn't get the full story until later, but the Slayer became known as Sekhmet, and not only did she keep all the powers of the Goa'uld, but something in those powers enhanced her ability to call on the skills of past Slayers to the point where she remembered the entire life of every Slayer that had ever lived before her."

Willow turned the page and continued. "Sekhmet infiltrated Ra's court, becoming his trusted right-hand and bodyguard. She learned his secrets and his weaknesses, while fostering a hidden rebellion. She didn't contact the Watchers until days before before the rebellion was to begin, and then she died within Ra's sky fortress - huh, wonder if that was a spaceship - when it fell to the Earth in flames. Ra was overwhelmed by a mob of thousands and only barely escaped through the Stargate, which was then buried by the Watchers according to instructions Sekhmet had left them."

Willow sat back. "Wowie."

"And now they're back for round two," Buffy said darkly.

"Yes, well, if these 'SGC' people you met can be trusted, it would appear they've been doing an admirable job of holding off the return of the Goa'uld so far," Giles opined.

"Hey, 'S' 'G' 'C'. Do you think the SG stands for Stargate? Like, they're calling their group Stargate Central or something?" Xander wondered.

"Oh dear," Giles sighed. "I'm afraid you might be right, Xander. I'll have to call the Council, and tell them I have reason to believe the, ah, '_Chappa'ai_' is not where it is supposed to be."

* * *

Men in black camo combed the woods where the NID asset had tracked the alien ship. Many knew just what town they were prowling around and knew to carry wooden stakes and a cross and had a clip of incendiary rounds in easy reach, but several didn't, and they weren't informed by their comrades.

It was at a late hour when the call came down the line. An alien object had been found. Camo-covered figures converged on the beachball-sized sphere.

Transport was called in while others stood guard. Two men watched impassively as a third was ambushed by a wandering vampire. Once the vampire was distracted with his kill, one man cooly drew his gun and fired a single incendiary round through the vampire's chest.

The artifact was secured and driven away.

The remaining agents were ordered to split off. Half were to set up an outpost in town, half were to stake out the woods in case the aliens came back there. The corpse of their one vampire casualty was stripped of identifying person effects and gear, and left for the local predators.

* * *

Being grounded, Buffy hadn't been able to come with them, but Willow'd had an idea to interface her Dreamlink with the present day internet. Xander had gone with her to radio shack, and now they were carrying bags of electronic components into Willow's house.

"So, tell me again what you need all this stuff for?" Xander asked as he kicked her front door closed behind him.

"Well, it's like this," Willow said as she led the way up to her room. "Basically, I need to build a signal converter that I can plug into a normal internet connection. Nobody has modems that can communicate with my Dreamlink, so I'm going to try to make one. The idea is to be able to go on the internet without needing a computer."

"Sounds great, Wills," Xander said.

Willow set her bags down on her desk and Xander followed suit. Willow sent out her Utility Cloud in two directions, flicking the lights on and twisting the blinds closed. Once that was done, Xander was momentarily startled as she casually pulled her tanktop off, giving Xander an eyeful of Willow-boobies. She kicked off her shoes and made her Utility Cloud pull her socks off, then pushed her skirt and panties down and kicked them into the hamper.

"Ahh," Willow sighed, running her hands all over herself. "That's better."

"So, I guess we're doing the naked thing, then," Xander said.

Willow spread her arms and twirled around. "Whenever we can, right?"

"Right," Xander agreed cheerfully, pulling his shirt off.

While Xander stripped, a naked Willow went to her desk and started going through the bags, pulling things out and organizing them on the desktop. She tossed the empty bags in the trash and finished arranging components with a thoughtful tilt of her head.

Xander piled the last of his clothes at the foot of Willow's bed and flopped back onto the bedspread. "Yeah, I'm definitely with you on this one. Clothes only when we absolutely have to."

Willow gave him a grin, and turned back to her project. She began by examining every component with her Utility Cloud. Bits of plastic and electronics were held up in the air in front of her, floating into different positions. Her Utility Cloud made this sort of small-scale precision work vastly easier than it would have been with just her hands and eyes. She could hold multiple pieces in place, cut or solder, test conductivity, and other things, all without any tools.

* * *

Buffy undressed for bed.

Even if she didn't need to sleep, she was grounded and didn't have anything better to do. She thought about sneaking out to go on patrol, but her mom was a light sleeper and she didn't want to risk it. And, she figured she ought to sleep sometimes anyway, in case there was a Slayer dream waiting for her.

Stripping off her underwear, Buffy went to her dresser to get her pajamas, but paused with the white sushi-print in her hands. She closed her eyes and sighed, and put the pajamas back in the drawer. Alone in her room, she could admit to herself that she really did prefer nudity, and going nude wasn't a habit she intended to break.

Being a Fae was just... better. It rankled to admit, but she liked that baring her body didn't make her feel vulnerable. She liked knowing that she could lose a fight and not die horribly. She liked knowing the Eliezera was up there, a safe haven for if the worst happened and the world burned in hellfire.

The idea of her mom, and Giles and anyone she cared about, withering with age, just seemed so horrific now that it was _avoidable_. And she couldn't want to turn her friends and family into Fae to save them without admitting that being a Fae _was_ better, even with the squicky stuff.

Buffy crawled into bed and pulled the covers up, snuggling into the soft sheets.

Somehow, her thoughts wandered back to the previous night, when Lyn, Zach, and Eelesia had their hours-long orgy, and her body reacted. Moaning softly, Buffy's hand wandered down to her silky-smooth vulva, fingers delving into her hot, slippery folds.

She spread her legs and sank three fingers into her moist flesh, thrusting her hips up as she plunged her fingers in and out. Her other hand went to her breasts, circling and fondling.

Buffy hissed out a breath between her teeth as her pussy spasmed around her fingers and the pleasure cascaded through her body.

She paused for a moment, then decided the hell with it and brought herself off several more times, before finally settling into her pillow to sleep.

Dreaming was somewhat more complicated for Fae than for humans. Fae had far more options. Fae could enter a virtuality by themselves or with others, through the Dreamlink. Fae could craft the parameters of a stand-alone dream they'd like to have. Or they could simply sink into some randomly-generated nonsense.

Eidetic memories were standard for Fae, and these experiences were not an exception.

The persistent Giaa-macromanaged virtualities of the first option were the Fae equivalent of video games and the social internet. Crafted dreams and recordings of crafted dreams could be shared on the Overlink, which quickly became the most popular form of artistic expression among the Fae.

Buffy chose the third option, guessing that the other options didn't count as being asleep enough for a Slayer dream to show up. She drifted off, dreaming of soft skin and roaming hands.


	5. Lie To Me

**Lie To Me**

Xander rolled with the fledgling's lunge, tossing the vampire away as he spun back up to his feet with something that looked like a break-dancing move. The vampire picked himself up from a ways away and snarled as his allies spread out to surround the overdressed Fae.

It was sunday night - well, monday morning actually - and Xander and Willow had volunteered to patrol so Buffy wouldn't have to risk her mom's wrath by sneaking out.

Due to boredom, Buffy had been trying to help Willow sort through the workings of the _Eliezera_, but she just didn't have the technical mindset for it. After all, the systems they were delving into were never meant to be user-friendly to anyone but a Giaa. Even Willow would have had no hope if not for the simple fact that simplicity was efficient, and the Giaa's subsystems were as elegant as possible.

Xander had been spending his nights at Willow's place, now that neither of them cared about the so-called inappropriateness. Xander was embracing the idea that sex was just something you did with your friends, like watching movies or hanging at the Bronze, and Willow was eagerly taking advantage of that every chance she got. She'd been telling Buffy about it in excruciating detail, too, with a heavy subtext of, "wish you were there with us."

Willow's Dreamlink-to-internet project had hit a block. There was just no way for her to jury-rig a neutrino detector from standard materials, so she was holding off on that until she could synthesize one on the _Eliezera_.

She'd stuck with her new Naughty Schoolgirl look for being seen in public, and he'd seen her giving other boys and girls considering, lusty gazes. Xander might have worried about how much Willow had changed if he didn't know her so well, but he recognized the vibrant girl who had so rarely shone through her insecurities in the past. Also, he had seen the results of her slashfic phase, much to his horror at the time. She'd always had a rich kinky center inside her soft fluffy crust. And suddenly he was craving Twinkies.

Xander brush-blocked a wild swing from the fledgling he was fighting, twirled around and kicked the vampire in the direction he was already stumbling. That vampire fell into the two others who were busy trying to feed on Willow, knocking them down and pinning Willow under a three-vampire pileup. Xander pulled a handful of sawdust out of his pocket and flung it towards the vampires.

"Willow, now!" Xander called.

There was an electric spark in the air, and a big fiery explosion. The vampires were consumed instantly and Xander was knocked off his feet as a bright plume roiled upwards.

Willow sat up, vampire ash billowing off her skin as her Utility Cloud regrew, her body extruding more of the complex molecules from her pores to replace those blown away by the explosion. Her outfit had been reduced to blackened tatters. Willow gave Xander a sheepish smile.

"Okay, so maybe we didn't need to look up what kind of wood would make the biggest boom," Willow said.

Xander did that flip off his shoulders onto his feet thing. "It worked, though! Extra crispy vampires."

Willow looked around nervously. "Someone probably saw that, or got woken up by the noise."

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Xander agreed as Willow flowed to her feet and they took off at a sprint.

* * *

A pair of undercover NID agents were driving a slow circuit of the town, when their overwatch radioed them to report an explosion in a cemetery in their sector. They made a turn and the driver pulled to a stop when he spotted movement.

A gleam of pale flesh resolved into a nearly-naked red-haired woman vaulting the cemetery wall in a smooth fluid motion, slapping her hands down on the top of the wall and then tucking into a roll when she hit the ground. A guy in cargo pants and a colorful shirt followed her with an almost identical move.

The driver's partner snapped a few quick pictures with his nightvision camera. They compared the snapshots to the images of the aliens.

"We have two confirmed sightings," the agent reported.

The sighting was passed up the chain of command, while the agents attempted to tail the two aliens. They lost the pair in a nearby residential neighborhood, but the implication was clear. New identities hadn't popped up matching any of the three aliens, but no one had yet thought to check existing records for a facial match. With the NID's access to private data, the aliens' human aliases were soon identified.

Agents were redeployed according to the new information, and plans were discussed.

* * *

The teacher was busy trying not to sound exasperated as Cordelia shared her opinion, but Buffy wasn't really paying much attention. Having the Dreamlink was so much better than passing notes.

_So the sawdust plan worked but it was way too conspicuous to use all the time,_Willow sent. _Not to mention hard on whatever you're wearing. Maybe whoever's playing bait should go in naked to start with?_

_As long as it's not me,_ Buffy replied. _Just because I feel the need to go clothing-optional when I'm alone at home, now, doesn't mean I wanna prance around graveyards in the buff. No buff-y Buffy._

Willow glanced over at her, amused. _Well anyway, after that we ran to my house and decided to have fun cleaning up in the shower together, which wasn't really necessary, obviously, but we hadn't had sex in a shower before and it seemed like a good opportunity. Xander feels so good when he's all wet and soapy, not that he doesn't feel good all the time. There's so much to feel for just one pair of hands, you know._

Buffy resisted the urge to hit her head on her desk as a shiver of desire crawled down her spine. _Willow, I know Lyn would think I'm being random and ridiculous, but until a few days ago Angel was the only person I was even thinking about doing something with. I'm not over him, Wills. He's gone, and I can't just transfer my feelings over to Xander._

_Well of course you shouldn't do that,_ Willow sent. _Xander wouldn't like that any better than you would. We just want to be your friends, like always. Your Angel-shaped feelings should be for Angel, 'cause you've already got Xander-shaped feelings and Willow-shaped feelings for us. And don't even try to tell me those feelings don't have any sexy-wants of their own, missy._

Buffy plopped her chin into her hands with a pout. _You really think we can live like real Fae?_

_Well, not totally,_ Willow replied. _Not without a Giaa. But among the three of us? What's a little sex between friends? Or, you know, a lot._ Willow gave her a sultry smile. _I'd be okay with a lot._

Buffy snorted as the bell rang. Everybody gathered up their things and Willow followed Buffy out into the hall.

Strangely enough, Buffy was almost reluctant to resist Willow's advances. Lyn had actually been closer to Eelesia than to Zach, but Lyn's feelings for Eelesia were more like what Buffy thought she might've been starting to feel for Angel. Ironically, that made it easier to separate Lyn's memories and feel secure in her own feelings for Willow.

"I don't know," Buffy sighed. "It's like, the way I feel about you is different than the way Lyn felt about Eelesia, so I know that it's not Lyn's influence making me want to go all girl-on-girl with you. But, the way I feel about Xander, I thought it meant things should be _this_ way, but Lyn felt the same way about Zach, and she thought it meant things should be this _other_ way."

Xander popped up between them. "Say what meant what things should be what way?"

"It's nothing," Buffy said automatically.

"Friend things, and the sexy way," Willow revealed. "Buffy's confused because Lyn was 'just friends' with Zach but they had sex anyway."

"Willow," Buffy complained. "Do you have to be in total share mode?"

"Hey, it's me," Xander said. "If there's somethin' Faeish draggin' on your brainspace, I wanna know about it, 'cause I'm your friend and I care about you, and the three of us are in this together."

"I know, Xander," Buffy said. "Do you think maybe I'm just making things difficult for myself, making myself miserable, because I don't want to feel good about this when I just lost Angel? You guys don't think that's what I'm doing, do you?"

Xander and Willow paused on the few steps leading to the lounge area. They looked at each other, then back at Buffy, and nodded in unison. Buffy's shoulders fell and she pouted.

Xander and Willow took a seat on one of the sofas.

"Hey, why don't you come over tonight, Buffy?" Willow suggested, cuddling into Xander's side. "We can have snuggles and ice cream, and, you know, wallow and stuff."

Buffy looked at Xander. "Haven't you been staying at Willow's while her parents are out of town?"

Xander held up his hands. "Hey I can swallow my pride and mourn Angel with you if that's what you need."

"Yeah, sure, thanks you guys," Buffy said.

Xander noticed a cute boy he didn't know spot Buffy and make a beeline for her. He stopped behind Buffy and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey Summers, how you been?" the boy asked.

Buffy spun around. "Ford?" Her face split into an astonished smile and she threw her arms around him. "Oh my god! What are you doing here?"

"Uh, matriculating?" Ford said, holding onto Buffy's hands.

"Huh?"

"I'm finishing up my senior year at Sunnydale High," Ford explained. "My dad got transferred."

"This is great!" Buffy enthused.

Ford leaned in close, his eyes doing that soulful smoldering thing he was so good at. "I'm glad you think so. I didn't think you'd remember me."

"Remember you," Buffy repeated flatly. "Duh! We only went to school together for seven years." She smiled coyly. "You were my giant fifth grade crush."

"I don't know, he doesn't look very giant to me," Xander joked. "I didn't see him step on even one village on his way over here."

Willow, Buffy, and Ford all stared at him.

"What?" Xander looked between the other three. "Nothing?"

"So, uh, who's your friend, Buffy?" Willow asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, guys," Buffy said. "This is Billy Fordham. Ford, this is Xander and Willow."

"Nice to meet you!" Willow said cheerfully. Xander waved.

Ford sat next to Buffy on the sofa across from Xander and Willow. It was strange. Xander still half expected that he'd start feeling jealous any second now, but he just wasn't. Buffy being so happy to see the other boy just made Xander want to know him too.

"Ford and I went to Hemery together in LA," Buffy told them, turning to Ford. "And now you're here, for real?"

"Dad got the transfer, and boom, he just dragged me outta Hemery and put me down here," Ford confirmed.

"This is great!" Buffy said again. "Well, I mean, it's hard, sudden move, all your friends, delicate time, very emotional." Buffy put her hand on Ford's thigh and grinned widely. "But it's great to see you."

"So, you two were sweeties in fifth grade?" Willow asked eagerly.

"Not even," Buffy laughed. "Ford wouldn't give me the time of day."

"Well, I was a manly sixth-grader," Ford teased. "I couldn't bother with someone that young."

"It was terrible. I moped over you for months," Buffy reminisced. "Sitting in my room, listening to that Divinyls song _I Touch Myself_."

Ford raised an eyebrow. Buffy blinked, realizing how that sounded, and felt her face heat.

"Oh, _that's_ what that song's about," Willow blurted. She gave Buffy a naughty smirk.

"Of course I didn't know that then!" Buffy said quickly.

"Though unaware, you were born through, by the soundtrack of your life," Xander deadpanned.

Ford chuckled and Buffy rolled her eyes.

"So, Ford, are you busy tonight?" Buffy asked. "You should come to the Bronze with us. It's the local club."

"I'd love to," Ford said. "But if you guys already had plans... Would I be imposing?

Buffy looked to Xander and Willow. "You guys don't mind, right?"

"No no, you should catch up with your friend, and we wanna get to know him too," Willow assured her.

"To the Bronze it is," Xander agreed.

"Okay then," Ford said, giving Buffy a smile. "If you're sure."

* * *

The order had been given, and the teams of agents had chosen their ambush site, outside the local youth club, an establishment known only as The Bronze. SUVs were parked in strategic positions. Agents lurked on rooftops and in alleys.

"We have movement. Sector three."

"Looks like a civilian and an HST. They're in the designated engagement zone."

"Operational security is the priority. Wait until the civilian is no longer a concern, then put an incendiary round in the HST's chest."

"Yessir."

"Hold. Target B sighted in sector one. One unknown. Possible accomplice."

The blonde alien and an unidentified black-haired boy strolled away from the Bronze together, arm in arm. They spoke casually, not seeming to be in a hurry to get anywhere in particular. The HST slammed the civilian girl up against a wall, and the blonde alien froze, cocking her head. She seemed to give the unknown boy an instruction, and then dashed around the corner into sector three.

"Target B is engaging the HST. The civilian is fleeing the area."

"The civilian is not important. Move in now. Take the unknown first, then close in on the target. Capture teams, go."

* * *

Buffy was still wincing about how lame her excuse had been when she dusted the vampire. She hadn't even brought a purse. Buffy pocketed her stake, hearing footsteps behind her. She turned just in time to see Ford standing there, before there was an odd electric noise and a bolt of blue light streaked out of an alley and struck Ford in the back. Ford went rigid like he was being electrocuted, and began to fall.

"Ford!" Buffy dashed forward, narrowly avoiding another bolt of blue light that crackled through the air behind her.

Shiny black SUVs screeched to a halt out of nowhere, boxing Buffy and Ford into the alley. Buffy spotted figures in black on rooftops and behind the SUVs taking aim with something metal. She leaped and twisted, dodging three more blue light bolts. She snatched a piece of broken concrete off the ground and hurled it at the guy on the roof, braining him.

A trio of black-clad men bundled Ford into the back of one of the SUVs. Buffy took down another guy with a piece of brick and chased after the SUV with Ford in it as it peeled out.

Buffy cursed under her breath, dodging another bolt of crackling blue. Whoever these bastards were, they were getting away with Ford, and she had no idea what they wanted or where they might take him. Buffy made a snap decision, and deliberately let the next glowing bolt hit her. It barely felt like anything, but Buffy tensed up and fell to ground, mimicking what she'd seen happen to Ford.

Footsteps ran up to her and rough hands picked her up, tying her hands behind her back and her feet together with bands of heavy plastic. Buffy formed an optical sensor with her Utility Cloud, so she could watch without giving herself away. She was loaded into an SUV, which drove off in what seemed like the same direction the one with Ford had gone.

The back of the SUV was fitted with a sturdy-looking wire cage, separating her from the front seat and the tinted windows. The driver was focused on the road, but the second agent watched her seemingly-unconscious form warily, keeping his snake-shaped raygun trained on her.

* * *

_Willow, Xander. We've got a situation,_ Buffy sent over the Dreamlink. _Me and Ford just got snatched by the freakin' Men In Black. They had rayguns and everything. They got Ford first, so I faked getting shot and let them take me, too._

Willow stopped dancing and exchanged a wide-eyed look with Xander.

_Oh no!_ Willow replied. _How? Why? What should we do?_

_I don't know. They weren't much with the explainy. They just came out of nowhere and started shooting,_ Buffy sent.

_We'll sneak back to the shuttle and follow you,_ Xander suggested.

Xander led Willow off the dance floor while her attention focused on the distant craft.

_Um, uh oh,_ Willow sent. _Guys, the shuttle's missing. Hang on..._

_Be careful guys,_ Buffy sent. _I doubt they were only after me. Their rayguns won't do anything to us, but they don't know that yet, and we don't want to encourage them to get bigger guns._

_What the heck? What's the shuttle doing in Nevada?_ Willow questioned. _Oh crud, they've got it under some kind of high-energy shielding. I can only reach it through the Overlink, and the signal latency is too high for direct control, so I can't see what they're doing with it. Should I send it back on autonav?_

_Leave it be and call down a new one for us,_ Xander advised. _If they're taking Buffy to the same place as the shuttle, it'll be good for some major backup once Buffy's close enough to control it, if she needs to blow some shit up. Do you think we should call the SGC about this?_

_Buffy's Men In Black might be with the SGC,_ Willow countered. _And if they're not, then the SGC will want to know what we were on Earth for in the first place, 'cause they think we're extradimensional aliens, remember?_

_Yeah, but they still might know something about these guys. Can you hack the SGC to find out what we're up against?_ Buffy sent.

_Well, yeah, if my converter was working and I had a few days to search through their files for relevant stuff,_ Willow replied. _The new shuttle is on its way, now. I sent it right to the roof of the Bronze._

_Are the guys who took you saying anything?_ Xander asked, leading Willow up into the loft area and over to the roof access.

_Not a thing,_ Buffy replied. _No way these guys are on the up and up. I'm gonna play damsel for now, but I swear if they hurt Ford I'm gonna go total slayer mode on them._

Willow turned to Xander. "The shuttle'll be here in about twenty minutes."

"That long?" Xander worried.

"Well, yeah, if we want it to still have fuel when it gets here," Willow said. "I think we should probably stay inside until it gets here."

Xander looked down over the milling and dancing teenagers. "As long as they don't get impatient and storm the place. But I bet they figure they have us trapped in here."

"I bet somebody saw us land," Willow pondered. "They got the shuttle first, and then tracked us down after."

"They _have_ to be with the SGC," Xander said. "How else would they know who we are? Especially Buffy. She was already home when we actually landed."

Willow scowled. "And they seemed so nice, too."

"You can track where Buffy is, right?" Xander checked.

Willow closed her eyes and pulled up the relevant subsystem in the _Eliezera_. She cross-referenced with current road-maps and studied the results. Willow nodded at Xander.

"She's on the interstate, heading southeast," Willow reported.

"Alright," Xander said. "So do we confront the SGC after all? Like, hey, you attacked us, cut it out or we'll wreck your crap?"

"Um, yeah, okay, but after we see if the Men In Black do the talking thing at Buffy," Willow said. "We don't know what we're gonna have to do, yet. So we don't know what to do the threatening thing about, yet."

"Right," Xander said, pulling Willow into his arms.

* * *

The shuttle drifted to a stop, its downwash of ionized air whistling softly over the roof of the Bronze. A trapdoor flipped open, and Willow dashed up with Xander on her heels. Bolts of blue light shot at them from several directions, and Willow wasn't sure if any of them hit.

In moments, Willow and Xander were inside the bubble, and Willow was flying it east, keeping low to the ground and subsonic as she held herself centered in the shuttle with her skeletal magnetics.

"Wills?"

"Yeah Xander?"

"Are we doing this as scoobies or as Fae?" he asked.

"Fae," Willow said resolutely. "I think we should stick to the story we told SG-1 until we know they know otherwise."

Willow quickly stripped out of her clothes, letting them fall to the bottom of the bubble, and Xander followed suit. It kind of felt like when they'd load up on weapons before a patrol, to Xander. Getting rid of his clothes actually made him feel less vulnerable. Xander Harris the highschool boy was safe, because he was facing this as Xander Reon the immortal interstellar traveler.

Xander floated up next to Willow and took her hand, as the green-dotted brown moonlit landscape raced by beneath them.

_Buffy, we're airborne and inbound,_ Willow sent. _Anything new on your end?_

_I pretended I was waking up to see if they'd say anything, but they just shot me again,_ Buffy replied. _Besides that, no._

* * *

"Sir, we're getting a signal from the Fae," Sergeant Walters reported as SG-1 filed into the control room.

"Well put it up on the thing," Colonel Jack O'Neill ordered.

Walters hit some buttons, and a screen flashed, resolving into a remarkably clear image of Willow Rin's face and exposed chest, with a dark desert landscape streaming away behind her. Somebody dropped a clipboard in surprise, and Jack nearly rolled his eyes. Willow's glossy red hair flowed dramatically and she had a terribly severe expression on her face.

Jack held in a groan, just knowing that this was going to be another night he didn't get to sleep. Willow looked pissed off, and she wasn't bothering to hide the distinctly earthly landscape she was traveling over.

"SGC, this is Willow Rin of the Fae," she said.

"Hey there, Willow," Jack said glibly. "I don't suppose you're callin' to tell us what you're doin' in our airspace?"

"In a manner, Colonel O'Neill. Someone with information they could only have obtained from you has attacked us," Willow stated. "We will give you one chance to have our people released, unharmed. If you do so immediately, we will allow you to keep the shuttle you stole, for study, which we feel is more than reasonable. If you do not, we will take back what is ours by force."

"Whoa whoa hold on there," Jack cut in. "This is all news to me. Last we knew you fellas were sittin' pretty up on your ship. But if you tell me what's going on, maybe we can help. Who was taken, and how?"

Willow ignored the question. "I would be happy to learn you and your team had no hand in this, Colonel O'Neill, but if that is the case I suggest you pass our warning on, and tell me everything you know about the facility located at these coordinates." A series of numbers appeared on the screen.

"Carter," Jack prompted.

Samantha Carter sat down at a terminal and did some stuff. Elizabeth Weir showed up, then. She did a double-take at the bare-breasted young woman on the screens. Weir was frozen in pure incredulity for a second or so until she remembered the report on the Fae.

"Sir, there's nothing at those coordinates but desert, according to our data," Carter reported. "If there's a facility there, it's not ours, or any of our allies'."

"Darn," Willow muttered.

"Who owns the land?" Weir inquired.

"It's not privately held. It's on the outskirts of a state park," Carter said.

"Too bad," Willow said. "I suggest you spread the word. If our people are not handed to us when we ask, we will destroy anything between us and them."

The screen went dead.

* * *

_Buffy,_ came a message from Willow. _We called the SGC and they say they don't know anything about these guys. I think they were telling the truth, too._

Buffy played possum as they carried her out of the SUV. They were in the middle of the desert, in front of a squat concrete shed tucked into a ravine under a large camouflage tent. She held in a sigh of relief when she saw them carrying an unconscious Ford out of the SUV ahead of her.

Inside, they carried her into a large elevator, and came out in a bland white concrete hallway. Buffy was deposited alongside Ford in a featureless concrete room with a steel door and florescent lights inset where the walls met the ceiling.

Buffy checked her Dreamlink, and sure enough the first shuttle was in range. She took control, but only to look around. The shuttle was sitting inside a large laboratory, inside some kind of force-field looking thingy. Men and woman in stereotypical sciency outfits were fiddling with various instruments that Buffy couldn't identify.

One woman sitting at a computer terminal called over her shoulder, "I'm reading a spike in neutrino emissions. Still no EM but what it's reflecting from the environment."

Several of the scientists argued over some technical stuff that Buffy didn't bother to listen too. She watched as they collectively shrugged and topic turned to material samples. Somebody complained about the tools they'd already ruined, and then someone else suggested they use something called a trinium saw.

Buffy shifted her attention and peeked at Ford, but he was still out.

Back at the shuttle, Buffy spotted a series of little obelisk things that the force-field seemed to feed into, or out of. She wondered if she ought to just blow up the lab, grab Ford, and fly out to meet Xander and Willow, but this wasn't really a slay-first-ask-questions-never situation. There was nothing that made Buffy think these people wouldn't just come after them again.

A pair of men approached the shuttle carrying something that looked like a cross between a jigsaw and a dentist drill. It had a small blade that hummed with a hypersonic whine. They brought it up to the hull of the shuttle and started cutting.

Buffy was immediately aware of the damage, but she wasn't too worried since she knew the shuttle's hull could easily regenerate. Then the sawblade penetrated all the way through...

CRAAKOOM!

...and Buffy's sight went dizzy as the highly pressurized radon gas exploded out, ripping a bloody hole through the bodies of the two men managing the saw, killing them instantly, and propelled the punctured shuttle into the force-field with a crash. The shuttle automatically expanded to full size and squeezed the inner and outer hulls into a seal around the rip.

The surviving scientists screamed and scrambled, choking on the heavy radon that filled the inside of the force-field. Fortunately for them, the shuttle had wedged itself into a corner near one of the field emitters, and its hull was in contact with the force-field itself. The shuttle drank in power from where it touched the force-field, quickly repairing itself and draining the emitters.

The force-field failed, and torrents of radon crashed outwards like a tidal wave. Alarms blared, heavy doors slammed closed, and armed men scrambled.

All that, and Buffy hadn't had to lift a finger, so to speak. On the one hand, HA HA! But on the other, that trinium thing was worrisome, but Fae skin was considerably harder to cut than the shuttle hull, because the skin didn't have to be permeable to large objects, but even cutting the shuttle hull should have been impossible for an ordinary metal blade.

Buffy left the shuttle and opened her eyes, sitting up and pretending to look around. She tugged at her wrist ties and felt them give just enough to know she'd be able to break them if she wanted. Buffy scooched over to Ford and gave him a nudge.

Unknown to Buffy, the moment she touched him, her skin absorbed the energy field produced by the first shot of the zat'nik'tel, dispelling the stun effect.

Ford groaned, waking up and slowly focusing on Buffy. Buffy helped him sit up.

"Ergh. I don't think those were vampires," Ford slurred.

Buffy froze. "What?"

Ford focused on her face and smiled. "I know you're the Slayer. I was waiting for the right time to tell you, I saw what really happened that night at Hemery. I know all about it."

"Oh."

"But, unless I missed a memo, vampires don't have rayguns," Ford went on. "What happened? Where are we?"

"Somewhere in Nevada, best I can tell," Buffy informed him. "I don't know who those guys were or what they were shooting us with, though."

Ford leaned his shoulder up against the wall. "They looked kinda... spook-like."

"I noticed." Buffy agreed. "I think they're like the Men In Black or something, only evil and without the Will Smith goodness. They probably want to dissect us, 'cause they're sure not in talky mode."

Ford closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. "Fuck."

Buffy tried to think of how to tell him they'd be alright without giving anything away to whoever might be listening, when Ford started laughing. It was a long, deep, body-shaking laugh, full of irony and regret.

"Ford?" Buffy tried, concerned.

Ford let his head roll to the side to look at her. "Ah, I'm sorry, it's just too fucking funny."

"Huh?"

"I would've been dead soon anyway," Ford sighed. "I have cancer, Buffy. Doctors told me I had six months, but the thing that dies at the end of that won't even be me anymore. Just a bald, smelly, tumorous vegetable. Frankly, I'd rather get cut up in some lab, than that."

"Ford..." Buffy started uncertainly, eye's wide.

"I missed you, Summers. Really did," Ford said, smiling at her. "But that's not why I came to Sunnydale, if you want the truth."

"What are..."

"I had this whole fiendish plot, you know," Ford told her conspiratorially. "There's this group, called the Sunset Club. They're idiots. Think vampires are these misunderstood romantic figures. I was gonna use them to..."

_Buffy, we're at the gates, or, um shed-bunker-thing,_ Xander sent. _Willow's shouting at them with a simulated loudspeaker, but all they're doing is shooting at us._

Ford swallowed, his expression somber. "I've got maybe two months before the nest of tumors in my head starts liquefying my brain. So little time. I wanted... I thought..." Ford shook his head. "I can't go out like that, Buffy. I was going to pull a con on you, sell a deal to get myself turned. Better a vampire, than a slow agony of dying piece by piece. Even if it didn't work, being one more villain defeated by Buffy the Vampire Slayer would at least be... Anything would be better than..."

Buffy was frozen in horror as Ford trailed off. He'd just confessed to serious badness, but he was Ford, her long-time friend, and he was facing an unbelievably horrible death. Buffy didn't know what to do.

Patterns of thought from Lyn's memories bubbled up. Ford's mind would be destroyed, a little at a time, before his body failed entirely. Even if his soul was going to carry his mind-state into a continued existence when it passed on - even if the soul-magic of this universe worked that way, and there was no evidence that it did - there would be nothing left of him to save.

"Ford, the thing that wakes up after you get turned, it's not you," Buffy found herself saying. "It's made _of_ you, but its not you."

"It would be more me than what I'll become if I don't do something!" Ford insisted.

Buffy opened her mouth to argue, but her Lyn memories stopped her. Lyn had a far more concrete and specific understanding of consciousness and what made a person, a person, than Buffy did. And as much as the wrongness of it sickened her, Ford was right.

Oh gods did she not want to think about it, but she couldn't help herself. A being was wholly and exactly the sum of their parts. When a human became a vampire, some important parts went missing, and other new parts were added in, but most of the parts were the same. In the whole they became something that couldn't co-exist with unaltered humans, but they were no less _living minds_ and deserving of existence - and that thought was so antithetical to her instincts and world-view that it felt like her brain skipped gears and stalled.

"It would be a monster!" Buffy rallied, tears in her eyes. "You don't want that."

There was a way Ford could live, Buffy knew. There was a brief time, Lyn remembered, where every Fae that lived had once been human. Even the worst cancer wouldn't matter at all. There was nothing of the frail human biology left in the body of a Fae. A Fae's body was a flawlessly engineered system, built from the molecular level up. Not even DNA remained. Ford could live on, immortal, just as he hoped, without losing anything at all.

"I don't want to be a broken shell either!" Ford shouted.

"Damn it, Ford! The vampires can't save you!" Buffy's stare hardened. "But I can."

* * *

Large-caliber armor-piercing bullets puckered the hull of the shuttle, falling to the dirt like metal rain. Willow guided the shuttle in a low circle around the camo tent and concrete shed. She'd been demanding the two prisoners be released for a while now, to no avail.

"I don't think they're listening, Wills," Xander noted.

Three soldiers emerged with rocket launchers, and took aim. Three streaks of fire struck the shuttle and exploded, illuminating Xander and Willow in the orange light of the flames. A small smile found its way onto Willow's face.

"Bored now."

A mere ten-thousand or so radon atoms were accelerated by the shuttle's drive, to such speed that the shuttle swayed back from the recoil. The tiny stream of radon tore a fiery tunnel through the air itself, crushing the nitrogen and oxygen in its path with enough force to cause a fusion effect.

Thirty nanoseconds later, the front end of a Humvee blew apart, flipping it up onto its back. The soldier on the gun turret survived, but he wouldn't be getting up on his own. A shockwave of plasma from the thermonuclear backblast blew all the surrounding soldiers off their feet, those nearest suffering second-degree burns.

Willow carefully aimed a second shot at the gun truck at the other end of the firing line, striking just under the front axle, and blowing that vehicle apart too. Soldiers scrambled to retreat back into the bunker, so Willow fired at the center of the concrete roof. It blew apart, raining debris on the soldiers who were busy diving for cover.

Taking that as his cue, Xander dropped through the bottom of the shuttle. One guy with a P-90 managed to get his gun up from where he was sprawled on the ground and get a few shots off. Xander flinched in pain, landing hard with one knee on the guy's ribs. Bone cracked.

Xander stood up, his jaw working soundlessly. "You shot me in the balls! Dude! Ow!"

Moving on, Xander dashed in among the soldiers that were getting to their feet, snatched one guy's gun away, and smashed another guy in the head with it. Bullets bounced off his back, staggering him, so he turned it into a roll and came up with electricity arcing through his Utility Cloud. Two guys dropped from minor electrocution, and Xander staggered again as bullets slammed into his side.

Willow fired another focused pulse at the ground near the rallying squad, spraying them with molten dirt and sending them sprawling. Xander rode the blastwave and tucked into another roll, coming to his feet by the ruin of the concrete shed where reinforcements were pouring out.

The newcomers opened fire, and Xander stumbled back under the sheer force of that many bullet impacts. Xander dropped to all fours and clawed his way forward, slamming into a pair of legs. Spreading his Utility Cloud, electric arcs crackled through the air, and soldiers fell twitching.

Up in the shuttle, Willow adjusted the environmental controls and then dropped out to the ground herself. She made the shuttle settle on the ground and then roll itself back and forth over the battlefield, collecting the fallen soldiers.

"Any more?" Willow asked.

"I don't see any coming out," Xander said. He shook his head at the pile of camo-clad bodies in the shuttle. "I really shouldn't find that funny."

Willow had the shuttle deposit the soldiers in a groaning pile some ways away and then come pick her and Xander back up. As they lifted into the air, Willow started bombarding the revealed entrance to the underground facility, until all that remained was a large, slightly radioactive crater with severed hallways poking out of the walls.

* * *

_Buffy, the way out is open,_ Willow sent.

_Thanks Wills. I've got Ford. I'm on my way,_ Buffy replied.

The faint sounds of explosions rumbled from above as Buffy ripped her wrists and legs free. Pushing down on the floor with her Utility Cloud, Buffy floated up into the air as her clothes shredded into scrap. No more pretending.

Buffy yanked on the steel door with her skeletal magnetics, and her feet slammed into the concrete on either side hard enough to produce a spiderweb of cracks. There was nothing to grab onto, but that didn't matter when her entire skeleton was a slayer-powerful and precisely variable electromagnet. She slapped her hands down flat against the metal, and _pulled_.

Ford was frozen with his mouth hanging open, as he watched the steel buckle, seeming to stick to Buffy's hands. Her naked body strained, pristine and beautiful.

The door tore from its moorings, falling on top of Buffy as she crashed to the floor. She kicked it off and rolled backwards to her feet, turning to Ford. He was still gaping. Buffy scooped him up into her arms and strode out of the cell.

"Okay, I knew you were the Slayer," Ford mumbled faintly. "I didn't know you could do that."

Blue bolts of light suddenly filled the hallway as men with rayguns rounded corners and fired. Buffy ignored the bolts. Ford flinched every time they were hit, but as long as he was touching Buffy the energy field was absorbed by her skin before it could do any harm.

Some of the guys with rayguns cut and ran, while others pulled out pistols. Buffy didn't spare the time to reach out with her Utility Cloud, and magnetically yanked the guns out of their hands directly. She kicked the flying guns aside before they could break something of Ford's, and those guys turned and ran too.

* * *

Willow leaned back into Xander's arms as they stood beside the shuttle where it rested on the scorched dirt. She was a little worried about how much she had enjoyed raining destruction on those guys. She hoped none of them died.

Suddenly, a little ways around the edge of the crater, the air lit up with a flare of brilliant white. Then the light was gone and a large group of armed people with SGC patches on their shoulders were standing in its place.

"Of _course_! Since this universe has an exploitable subspace, you could supernavigate the quantum uncertainty as expressed in only the limited dimensions of normal space from an extraspacial vantage point..." Willow trailed off, her eyes finding Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter among the new arrivals. "You have direct matter manipulation and you were asking about _weapons_?" Willow shrieked.

"Well hello to you too," Colonel O'Neill greeted, before turning and barking orders, sending teams down to secure the facility and the wounded.

Several of the marines and SG teams were staring at Xander and Willow, at least one muttering about, "Said 'they might be naked', shit, they weren't kidding."

Willow was still stuck on them having beaming technology. "You... that... you can... _weapons_ are obsolete! Why the frilly heck were you asking about weapons?"

"Sir?" Colonel Carter checked.

"Go ahead, Carter."

Major Carter informed Willow that the technology wasn't theirs. It was on lone from an alien race called the Asgard, and the Asgard had built limits into the system. They couldn't beam only part of an object. They couldn't activate the beam unless a suitable destination was already targeted. It wouldn't let them make copies of things, or generally do anything except move things from one place to another.

"Oh, that makes more sense, then," Willow said. "But still, you'd think - Buffy!"

Buffy strolled out of the facility into the crater, carrying Ford bridal-style, and gave a team of marines a dazzling smile as she dashed up the edge of the crater with three quick leaps. She landed lightly next to the shuttle and stuck Ford inside. Willow wondered what had happened to Buffy's clothes - Ford still had his - but she wanted to encourage no-clothes Buffy, and drawing attention to it probably wouldn't do that, so she kept the knowing smirk of smugness off her face.

Instead, she just wrapped her arms around Buffy and gave her a short but heartfelt kiss. Buffy was flustered, but she tried to play it off like she wasn't, which Willow took as a good sign.

"Wills, I need you to take Ford up to the _Eliezera_," Buffy told her quietly. "Right now. He told me some things..."

Meanwhile, Daniel Jackson was trying to smooth things over with Xander.

"I can promise you that this wasn't a sanctioned operation, and we would all like to offer you and your people an apology, and our hope that this incident won't sour any future relations," Daniel stated.

"I think we're not quite ready to trust you completely, but I'm willing to accept that you guys are not of the evil," Xander offered.

_Xander, we need to take Ford to the Eliezera. Let's go before the SGC people decide to try to keep us here,_ Willow sent.

"Thank you for giving us the benefit of the doubt," Daniel said. "Um, our investigators would like to take a statement. Anything you can tell us about how they managed to take Ms. Reaval and, uh..."

"Sorry," Xander interrupted, "but we've got to do a thing. We call ya, okay?"

"Wait - "

Xander used his skeletal magnetics to yank himself through the air towards the shuttle. He slipped through the hull, joining Buffy and Willow inside.

There was a gust of wind from the silent downwash as the shuttle lifted from the ground, Willow floating in the center of the bubble. Ford sat at the bottom with Buffy while Xander settled himself halfway up the curve of the sphere, in front of Willow.

* * *

Buffy smiled softly as Ford stared at the slowly shrinking Earth through the hull of the shuttle. She slid closer and put her hand on his.

"Not what you were expecting?" Buffy asked wryly.

Ford shook his head. "I thought I knew what was going on, with you being the Slayer. I never imagined anything like this. I'm so sorry Buffy. I was such a fool to think I could... play you."

"Yes. Yes you were." Buffy held serious-face for a few more seconds and then grinned at him.

"So, is there some reason you're all naked?" Ford asked, finally looking away from the shrinking Earth. "I mean, don't get me wrong, your transformation sequence thing was very badass, I'm just wondering what happened to the ending part where your magical girl uniform appears." Ford gazed up teasingly at her through his eyelashes.

Willow burst into giggles, turning a slow somersault as she clutched her knees to her chest and shook with laughter. Xander snorted and ducked his head to hide his grin.

Buffy pouted. "Come on, what's so funny? Make with the 'splainy."

"You never watched anime, Buffy?" Willow asked, getting herself under control.

"Um, no?"

Ford shook his head. "Never mind, then. But seriously, why all the nudity?"

"Why not?" Buffy chirped. "We've become something more than human, Ford. We've become Fae. We've outgrown the need."

Willow shot Buffy a sneaky proud look.

"That's the point of all this," Buffy said. "We're going to turn you into a Fae. You'll live forever, you'll be nearly impossible to harm, and you won't be trading your moral instincts for demonic urges."

"You can really do that?" Ford asked.

"Can and will," Buffy confirmed.

* * *

The shuttle passed through the _Eliezera_'s hull, transitioning from dark starry space to a beautiful meadow with rolling hills and palm trees, lit by the glow of a vast greenish-blue gas planet with gleaming lavender rings that filled more than half the sky.

"Whoa, that's new," Xander commented.

"I found some of the landscaping presets, remember?" Willow said. "I did some remodeling yesterday. Like it?"

"It's beautiful, Wills," Buffy told her.

"What planet is that?" Ford wondered.

"Oh, it's not a real planet, just an image I made up," Willow confessed.

The shuttle deposited the foursome on the grass. Buffy, Xander and Willow stood, while Ford floated, holding on to Buffy's hand. Buffy felt kind of like she was towing a Ford-shaped balloon around.

"Hey, this isn't grass," Ford said.

The grass under their feet was green, but that's where its resemblance to grass on earth stopped. Each 'blade' was a rounded blunt stalk about the size of a finger, and squishy like an earlobe. It was far more pleasant to the touch than natural grass.

"It's Fae grass," Xander deadpanned.

"The grass and flowers and trees and stuff are all engineered," Willow explained. "The Giaas never just copy what nature came up with, 'cause they have goals nature didn't."

They came to the top of a hill, where a fleshy translucent egg-shaped thing jutted up through the grass. It looked like something you'd come up with if you tried to make the Zerg aesthetic cozy and comforting. A thick muscular base, diverging into four thick bands of reddish flesh that somehow managed to look pretty instead of gross, all meeting at the top. The translucent membrane they cradled seemed to glow with a faint, warm, inner light.

"This is a birthing pod," Willow explained. "Or in your case, a rebirthing pod. It'll manage and monitor the process of your transition. It'll take between two and three weeks, but you'll be, ah, asleep the whole time."

Willow didn't want to go into details unless he asked. Once in the pod, his biorhythms and brain activity would be suspended, then engineered molecules would break down his body until there was nothing left but the brain and spinal cord. The brain would shrink as each neuron was carefully replaced with an optimized design while preserving the existing structure, chemical information, and connections, then expand once more to human size as control circuitry for the Utility Cloud, skeletal magnetics, Dreamlink, and morph settings was wired in, along with the vastly improved memory capacity, basic Fae language, and optimized motor skills. As this happened, the rest of the new Fae's body grew out from the nervous system and skeleton, and their morph settings were preset to match the extrapolated ideal of the macroscopic scan of the original human. That all sounded kinda scary if you didn't understand the science behind it.

Ford looked at the pod a bit nervously. "And when I wake up, I'll be..."

"Safe," Buffy supplied.

Ford nodded. "What do I have to do?"

"You might want to strip down, or at least empty your pockets, but you don't have to do anything but climb in," Willow said.

"Alright," Ford said, handing his wallet to Buffy and kicking off his shoes.

Willow triggered the pod to open, and it peeled itself apart like a blooming flower, the membrane dissolving as the fluid womb flattened and drained away.

"Willow, there's already someone in there," Xander said suddenly.

Willow flew forward. "What? How?!"

Willow had only made the pod grow itself less than an hour ago, and it had been empty then. And yet, a sleeping girl floated in a cradling nest of delicate tendrils, curled up in fetal position. She looked about thirteen by human standards, like a newborn Fae, and had short sandy-brown hair, with a skin tone and face shape reminiscent of Buffy's. Willow was ready to call shenanigans.

"Who's she?"


	6. A New Dawn

(AN: I've since realized that I goofed on the Stargate timeline, so I'm shuffling things a bit: Hayes has been president for a while, and Weir has been in charge of the SGC for almost as long, with the events surrounding Anubis pushed back to coincide with post-Halloween. Unfortunately, this means Kinsey getting told to shut the hell up happened back during Death Knell, before the story starts, when he tried to order Weir to abandon Carter and the anti-Kull weapon.)

* * *

**A New Dawn**

The squishy grass split apart under Lyn's feet as tentacles of reddish glistening flesh burst out of the ground, grasping for her legs. Lyn rocketed straight up, bounced off the soft silky surface of one of the giant leaves of a nearby tree, and shot off in a random direction. She laughed giddily at the close call, pressing one hand to the slight visible bulge of her womb.

Lyn landed on the side of a cliff that rose in her path, and took off at a sprint.

She'd been pregnant for a month now, and the new life in her womb would not grow any further until it was extracted and placed in a birthing pod. For many expectant mothers, the extractors simply presented themselves whenever she stopped in one place for more than a few minutes and waited for her to use them, but for others like Lyn, the Giaa saw in her mind that she would have more fun if she was chased, and so made a carefully calibrated effort to take her without her consent.

Lyn had been startled, but not surprised. She'd intended to play keep-away from the moment she first felt the new life kindling inside her. There was a small subculture among pregnant Fae, who competed with each other to see who could avoid being taken by the extractor tentacles for the longest time. Lyn was nothing if not competitive. The Giaas, of course, noticed and seamlessly ensured that the competition remained both challenging, interesting, and fair.

Lyn fled for four days, and was starting to get bored, but she had a friend who's time she wanted to beat, so she kept going until she'd been at it for just long enough to win that contest.

"Ha!" Lyn crowed in victory as she came to rest on a hilltop, pumping her fist in the air.

Reddish glistening tentacles sprouted from the ground around her, licking their way up her legs and arms. Lyn petted the lengths of fleshiness that twined passed her hands, even though they were just mechanisms, because they simply felt nice to touch, all warm and slippery.

The muscular base of a birthing pod grew out of the ground directly under her, between her feet. A prehensile stalk of glistening red sprouted upwards towards her apex, while her legs were firmly lifted and spread. The stalk was about ten centimeters thick, and ended in a ring of small tendrils surrounding a soft-looking orifice.

Lyn was already wet and throbbing with anticipation. She'd been running for nearly a week straight, and that was just too long to go without some sort of sexual release, in her opinion.

The top of the thick fleshy stalk molded itself to Lyn's vagina, stroking her folds and rubbing her clit with its little tendrils. Moaning loudly, Lyn's head lolled back, and then after a few more seconds of stimulation her body quaked in orgasm.

The tendrils squirmed, spreading her open, and the thickness of the main stalk squeezed its way into her. Lyn bucked her hips, riding the thick phallus as it slowly thrust deeper and deeper. She climaxed quickly and stilled, trembling through the waves of pleasure as the thick stalk continued to fill her, then started moving her hips again.

The fleshy stalk filled her completely, molding its end to her cervix. For a moment it was still and so was she, savoring the feeling. And then her world dissolved in an explosion of orgasmic ecstasy as climax after climax crashed into her in a continuous stream. The tendrils drove forward, pulling Lyn's cervix open and reaching into her womb.

A bulge traveled down the fleshy stalk, and the constant orgasms ceased. Lyn trembled, a rapturous expression on her face. She moaned as the fleshy stalk pulled out of her, and drifted away languidly when the tentacles released her.

The birthing pod itself grew to completion over the next few minutes. Lyn drifted down and stood on the squishy grass. The pod and its contents would grow for a month, until it was taller than Lyn. After that month, the pod would unfurl like a flower and the newborn Fae would wake up for the first time.

The newborn would, by human standards, look about 13 or 14, and be fully sexually mature. He or she - she, in this case, which was determined by the Giaa in response to innumerable subtle factors - would already be pre-imprinted with optimized motor skills and the basic vocabulary and grammar of the Giaa-designed Fae language. She would grow and learn for two to three years, until she looked 20 by human standards, at which point her morph settings would unlock.

Lyn came back to the pod every few days, but she wasn't too worried. Newborn Fae were more or less self-sufficient, and if her little Dawn needed Lyn, the Giaa would arrange for them to happen across each other. Not that Lyn was planning on that. She fully intended to be there when her daughter was born, and be the first thing her little Dawn saw.

Lyn rested a hand on the warm membrane of the birthing pod, and smiled.

* * *

"This is Lyn's daughter," Buffy said softly, staring at the sleeping girl.

"Shit," Xander breathed.

"Oh... she must have been brought here with the ship," Willow suggested. "According to the pod, she's fully developed. No reason not to pull her out. Buffy?"

"Yeah," Buffy murmured, swallowing a lump in her throat. "Dawn..."

"Who's Lyn?" Ford asked from where he was holding onto the grass with one hand to keep from floating away.

Buffy reached in and pulled the sleeping girl into her arms. "I'll explain later, Ford. You should get in the pod."

Ford nodded slowly, watching her curiously as he carefully maneuvered himself. Delicate pale tendrils steadied him. Willow concentrated on the pod, and started it doing its thing. It closed up around Ford, and moments later he drifted into unconsciousness.

"I don't get it," Buffy said, still cradling Dawn to her chest. "How can she be here? No one and nothing else came through with the ship."

"I know right," Willow agreed. "I don't know. Are you okay, Buffy?"

"Yeah," Buffy said. "It's just, it feels like she's mine, not just Lyn's."

"Well, good," Xander said, resting a hand on Buffy's shoulder. "Because you're who's here."

"Okay, well, um, I need a little while to do something," Willow said.

"What's up, Wills?" Xander asked.

"Well, it's like this," Willow explained. "I want to write some command access restriction programs. We don't have a Giaa to keep problems from happening, so, like, I want to make sure only the three of us can control the ship and stuff, 'cause I mean, we're not going to stop with Ford and little Dawn there, are we? And we don't want some doofus crashing the _Eliezera_ or blowing up the moon or something, right?"

"Oh, yeah." Buffy nodded. "Right."

"Hold up, what are we talking about here?" Xander questioned.

"We can give people the upgrade, now," Willow said, settling into a meditative pose. "Think about it, Xander. This is the early twenty-first century. How many people are dying right this second?"

"Fuck," Xander whispered. "We can't keep this a secret, can we."

"No," Buffy agreed quietly.

"The SGC is going to have kittens," Xander groaned.

"I don't care," Buffy said firmly. "I had my head up my ass about this long enough. I'm not letting millions of people die just so the bureaucratic overlords can feel important."

Xander tugged on his chin in thought. "We can't do it up here. It'll be too slow and resource-intensive to ferry billions of people to the _Eliezera_ by shuttle. If we don't want a war on our hands we have to cover the whole planet in rebirthing pods, everywhere at once. Upgrade as many people as possible before governments have a chance to react."

"Okay, but then how'll people know what the pods are for?" Buffy wondered.

"Well, they'll... um..." Xander gestured helplessly.

"I guess we'll have to figure something out." Buffy suddenly blanched. "Do you think the upgrade would work on demons?"

"Not vamps. It would depend for others," Xander said after a moment. "Does it matter? Even if some big bad gets Faed, we do this right and there'll be no one left they can harm."

Buffy was a little torn, but before she could think about it, she was distracted by Dawn.

The newborn Fae in Buffy's arms was waking up. Dawn's eyes opened gently, and her mouth formed a little 'o' of interest as she stared up at the projected sky and all around the idyllic landscape with wide curious eyes, taking in her first sights ever. Dawn's gaze locked onto Buffy's face, and the newborn girl put her hand to Buffy's face, feeling her.

"Skin. Face. Buffy. You are pretty," Dawn said in the Fae language.

Buffy's grin was almost painful. Dawn moved her thumb to Buffy's lips, tracing her mother's smile, and Dawn's face split into a reciprocal grin.

"And you are too, my little Dawn," Buffy cooed.

Dawn wriggled out of Buffy's arms and set her feet on the grass, twisting around in a circle as she took in her surroundings. She moved as though there was gravity. Other skills had to be learned, but the deceptively complex task of using one's skeletal magnetics to simulate weight was instinctive.

Dawn took a moment to peer at Xander, who smiled and gave a little wave. Dawn suddenly bounded towards him with innocent enthusiasm, slamming into him hard enough to knock him over. Xander bounced off the grass and stopped them in mid air, snickering. Dawn had her knees clamped on his hips and her hands on his ribs as she peered closely at his face.

"Hi there," Xander chuckled.

"I am called Dawn!" Dawn shared brightly. "You are called Xander."

Xander tilted back onto his feet and gave her a goofy smile. "Sure am."

Dawn giggled and looked up from Xander at the projected sky, reaching up with one hand as though to touch it. Shoving off of Xander, Dawn touched the grass and sprang straight up, shooting off like a rocket.

"Dawn wait!" Buffy called, leaping after her.

Xander winced as Dawn smashed face-first into the ceiling at a speed that wouldn't be out of place on a freeway. Dawn drifted back, tumbling slowly with a stunned expression on her face. She blinked and gave the pretty planet a pouty glare.

"The sky is mean!" Dawn complained.

Fighting an amused smile, Buffy pulled Dawn into a hug. "That's not a real sky, Dawnie."

Xander was having a harder time holding in his amusement. That had been downright cartoonish. But then, that was kind of the point. The freedom of having a body that wouldn't fail you, no matter what you did, no matter what mistakes you made. Xander shook his head and dove towards Willow, who was still motionless, sitting against the side of the birthing pod.

Dawn snuggled into Buffy as they followed Xander down, the imagined sky forgotten in the face of yet another new experience. The intimacy of full frontal skin to skin contact was a profound thing. With a cute little sigh, Dawn wrapped her arms and legs around Buffy and nuzzled her face into the top of Buffy's chest. Buffy landed on the squishy grass and smiled indulgently...

...until Dawn's wriggling became less kittenish and distinctly more sensual. Buffy's smile froze in place and her face slowly reddened as Dawn obliviously dry-humped her abs. And the _dry_ part of that was quickly becoming otherwise. Buffy had no idea what to do. She knew it would be wrong to reprimand Dawn, but at the same time she was so not to the point where she was comfortable participating in her daughter's sexual explorations.

Buffy shot Xander a pleading look. _Um, help?_

"Uh," Xander said, looking just a little deer-in-the-headlights-y.

After standing there blinking for a few moments, Xander's face suddenly lit up and he jumped over to them. Xander's fingers danced over Dawn's torso and neck, looking for ticklish spots. With a bright peal of laughter, Dawn flailed, releasing Buffy and squirming to get away from Xander as she giggled wildly.

Dawn somersaulted out of Xander's reach and took off at a sprint. She ducked into the roots of a tree a ways away, clinging to the firm but velvety smooth surface. Her head peeked out, and Xander made threatening tickling motions with his hands. Dawn squeaked and ducked back into her hiding spot, but they could still hear her faint giggling.

* * *

"Well done, Commander," Anubis rumbled hollowly.

The jaffa stepped back from the piece of cut stone containing the Alteran repository, and did his best not to look smug. They'd been expecting Tau'ri interference, but when they got to the planet all they found was one of the Tau'ri's wheeled probes.

Anubis had the device taken to his research laboratories, and ordered that he not be disturbed. He had knowledge to reclaim, and this was not work he could delegate.

* * *

SG-1 sat in their accustomed seats around the table in the briefing room, Jack O'Neill looked up from his copy of the report.

"So, it would seem that over a dozen of the rogue NID agents we have in custody, all agree that Buffy Reaval and the other one were both grabbed in a small town in California. On Earth," Jack summarized flatly.

"Do we have any reason to discount this version of events?" Doctor Weir asked.

"Well, they could all be feeding us a pre-arranged lie," Jack allowed. "Here's an idea, why don't we call up the Fae ship and ask them what they were doing on Earth. See what they say."

"If they are indeed, up to something, would not such questioning, tip our hand?" Teal'c inquired.

"They'd have to know we'd question the rogue agents," Daniel pointed out. "And they never actually said how or where it happened."

"They did leave the bubbleship for us to study, Sir," Carter added.

"How is that going, by the way?" Doctor Weir asked. "Have the science teams learned anything yet?"

Samantha Carter puffed up her cheeks and blew out a long sigh. "We're not even sure where to begin, to be honest. The hull seems to defy analysis. We're not even sure if it is a liquid or a solid. We have determined that the shuttle uses radon gas for its reaction mass."

"Isn't radon highly radioactive?" Doctor Weir asked.

Carter nodded. "Yes, but as best we can tell, the hull of the shuttle, for lack of a better term, _eats_ both the radiation and the decay products. Presumably that is one of its power sources, but that's just conjecture at this point."

"Is that all?" Jack asked.

"We're fairly sure that the bubbleship doesn't interact with subspace at all," Carter continued, "and exploiting subspace through the unique properties of naquada is the basis for nearly all the advanced technology we've encountered off world thus far. I'm finding myself wondering if maybe Willow Rin was right."

"About?" Doctor Weir prompted.

"It was something she said to me during our first contact," Carter said. "She claimed that subspace phenomena were, in her words, 'tacked on' to this universe. I can't know for sure until I have a chance to study their version of the Unified Field Theory to see if it matches ours, but I think she might be _right_. Our Unified Field Theory perfectly predicts the properties of our quantum reality, _except_ when naquada gets involved. Our physics are simple, elegant, and perfectly reducible, except for this one _mineral_ and its variations. Well, there are other exceptions, Willow was right about that too, but naquada is the only one we actually understand."

"Carter," Jack cut in. "This is all very fascinating, but what's it going to do for us against the immediate threat?"

"Maybe nothing," Carter admitted, "but maybe a whole lot."

"How so?" Doctor Weir asked.

"The bubbleship itself is, well, pretty much useless to us as a military asset, but the implications of it being built in a universe that lacked some of the physical laws of this one - possibly _all_ the physical laws of this universe, except Unified Field Theory - are huge," Carter said. "There are a _lot_ of little... _inconsistencies_... in our observed reality, now that I have some idea what to look for."

"Like what?" Daniel asked curiously.

"For starters?" Carter paused. "Entropic Cascade Failure. Or if you want something simpler, how about, why do we remain conscious in transit between stargates?" Carter let the question hang in the air for a moment. "We've seen, again and again, phenomena where consciousness has effects that supersede the fundamental laws... I honestly can't blame the Fae for calling it magic. The term is scientifically apt."

Daniel felt a chill go down his spine.

"Of immediate use," Carter continued, "is the known fact that the Alterans were physiologically identical to us. Willow was right about that too. They didn't have forcefield generators or subspace radios in their brains. And yet a great number of them displayed powerful psionic abilities. Telekinesis, telepathy, cellular regeneration, thermokinesis, electrokinesis..." Carter trailed off.

"What are you getting at, Major?" Doctor Weir asked.

Carter took a breath. "I believe it is possible for Daniel, and most likely others, to regain at least some of the mental powers displayed by the Alterans, through nothing more than training. We have the same physical brain structure they did. It must be possible for humans to do what they did."

"Um, really?" Daniel questioned, shooting uncertain looks around the table.

"Well... yeah," Carter asserted. "If - "

The warning klaxon sounded. "Unscheduled Offworld Activation!"

SG-1 shared a look and got up, heading down to the control room.

"Recieving SG-3's IDC."

"Open the iris."

SG-3 came through the gate at a run, somewhat out of breath, but looking intact. Doctor Weir gestured for Jack to follow her and went down into the gate room.

"Colonel Reynolds," Doctor Weir said. "What happened?"

"Anubis landed in force while we were on the planet," Colonel Albert Reynolds reported. "We went to ground, but the jaffa forces didn't stay long. Ma'am. Sir. They took the ancient repository."

"Oh. That's... bad," Jack opined.

* * *

Buffy watched Dawn sit knee to knee with Willow, mimicking the redhead's posture, with an impish expression on her young face. Willow was still working on her security program, but every time Dawn would start to get bored and look away, Willow would peak her eyes open, wait for Dawn to notice, and then go back to pretending to be oblivious to the world.

It was surprisingly effective at keeping Dawn entertained.

Buffy looked sideways at Xander. "Xander?"

"Yeah, Buff?"

Buffy just looked at him for a long moment, her face unreadable. Then she turned and floated up until she was level with Xander's face. She kissed him, soft and full of promise.

"Buffy?" Xander breathed.

"I've decided I'm pro-Fae," Buffy said softly. "I figure this is inevitable, and I figure, if I know what I'm gonna think later, I might as well go with that, now."

Xander gave her a lidded smile. "Well. It's about dang time."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Quiet, you."

And then she was kissing him again, hot and eager, probing his tongue with hers. Her breasts flattened against his firm chest as his arms enfolded her. Buffy pushed Xander off his feet and flew them around behind a hill. As Xander's back settled against the squishy grass, Buffy trailed kisses down his jaw and onto his chest. Her warm wetness brushed his glans and she shivered in anticipation.

Xander wrapped his arms around Buffy's lower back and sat up, aiming himself so his glistening phallus pressed against her dripping entrance. Buffy curled her hips forward and down, popping his girth through her labia and into her depths. Buffy shuddered in pleasure and arched her back, pushing her chest into Xander's face.

Xander nuzzled his nose into her breasts, making Buffy grin. With a buck of her hips, she sank herself the rest of the way down onto Xander's length and began to slowly ride him. Xander kissed his way to a nipple and latched on, nibbling and sucking while his hands stroked her back and his thumbs traced her spine.

Meeting Buffy's slow riding with languid thrusts, Xander took a moment to let the part of himself that idolized Buffy exult in profound victory. Then Buffy trembled as she reached orgasm, and with a few firmer thrusts Xander quickly followed, spurting deep inside her. And Xander moved on, letting that part of himself fade into a comfortable memory.

Xander gave Buffy a smile and a raised eyebrow. She grinned at him, and her lips crashed into his as she planted her feet in the grass under Xander and raised herself up about half of Xander's length. Xander grabbed her butt and pulled himself back into her forcefully, their flesh slapping together. Buffy moaned into his mouth as Xander pounded into her, quickly building them both to a second orgasm.

They stopped, Xander buried to the hilt as they trembled together with orgasmic convulsions. Buffy looked into his eyes for a long moment, and then seemingly without either of them initiating it, they were suddenly moving again, fucking without restraint.

They climaxed in quick succession a third time. And then a fourth. And a fifth. And a sixth. And a...

* * *

"And... done," Willow murmured, opening her eyes and grinning at Dawn.

Dawn pointed at her and giggled. "You looked! You looked!"

"Yep," Willow agreed, booping Dawn on the nose.

Dawn bit Willow's finger and gnawed on it. Willow grinned impishly and started pulling Dawn this way and that by her teeth. Dawn was soon laughing too hard to keep Willow's finger trapped.

Dawn's giggles died down, and she cocked her head. "What are the funny noises?"

Willow smirked. "Oh that's just your Buffy and Xander having a moment." Willow snerked. "Or sixty."

Dawn looked at her blankly.

"We should probably leave them be," Willow mused. "This time, anyway."

* * *

It was early morning, and SG-1 was back in the briefing room.

"This is... We were counting on this," Daniel said. "With the Lost City in the hands of Anubis, I think we have bigger problems than whatever the Fae were doing in California."

"Unless the Fae are working for Anubis," Jack contributed.

Carter winced. "Frankly, if that's true, we're totally screwed. Sir."

"Unfortunately, I have to agree with Major Carter," Doctor Weir said. "For the moment, the Fae ship is the only thing standing between us and Anubis' fleet. I think we have no choice but to trust them."

"Indeed," Teal'c contributed.

Jack planted his elbows on the table. "So, assuming the Fae are on our side, what can we do?"

"Well, they can probably say more about that than we can," Daniel pointed out.

Doctor Weir nodded, and stood. "Let's call them up."

* * *

Dawn was lying prone in the grass, spying on Buffy and Xander's athletic fucking. Willow hung back, half amused, half hesitant. Sure enough, during a post-orgasmic lull, Buffy eventually noticed.

"Dawn!" she shrieked.

Dawn flinched back, folding back onto her knees. Her lip trembled, and her wide eyes started to shine. Buffy winced, looking supremely torn, and repeated Dawn's name in a softer tone, pulling away from Xander and going to her with a sigh. Dawn pouted about being yelled at, but it didn't look like tears would come.

Shaking her head, Willow took a step forward.

"Fae ship _Eliezera_, this is Doctor Elizabeth Weir, leader of Stargate Command. Please respond."

Willow blinked and directed her attention to the her interface with the SGC's subspace radio. On the video feed, she saw a tall sharply dressed brunette woman standing in front of a group she recognized as SG-1. Willow formed a camera with her Utility Cloud and opened the connection.

"This is Willow Rin. What can I do for you, Doctor Weir?"

The woman glanced behind her for a moment before turning back to the screen. "Firstly, I would like to once more apologize for the actions of the rogue members of the NID who caused you trouble, and thank you for the restraint you showed in your response."

"We appreciate that," Willow said with a nod.

"I would like to invite you, and miss Reaval and mister Reon, to come visit our facility," Doctor Weir said. "The goa'uld Anubis recently won a major intelligence victory over us, and we would like to discuss our plans for the defense of this planet with you."

"Of course," Willow agreed, worrying her lip. "Um, when?"

"As soon as possible," Doctor Weir said. "However, before that, some of my people have concerns I'd like to address now. According to the rogue agents we apprehended, miss Reaval and her unnamed companion were on Earth when they were abducted. We'd like to know why."

"Oh," Willow winced. "I can see how you would. I assure you our reasons were completely innocuous, Doctor Weir."

"That's a little vague," Jack O'Neill grumbled.

"I am sure we'll both be all with the details soon, Colonel O'Neill," Willow said. "If you'll provide landing coordinates, we'll be there in... an hour or two?"

Major Carter came forward and did something off screen, and Willow received the coordinates. Apparently Stargate Command was in Colorado.

"We look forward to your arrival," Doctor Weir said.

"Thank you, Doctor Weir," Willow said, closing the connection.

Willow sighed. Giles' books hadn't had much to say about Goa'uld who weren't Ra or his court, so all she knew about Anubis was the mythology. Even that wasn't very heartening. And, though she couldn't be sure, it had seemed like Doctor Weir was downplaying the situation when she called it a major intelligence victory.

"I was just startled that you were watching, Dawn," Buffy was saying in a tone that was meant to be reassuring, but came out just a little pained.

"You were doing sex," Dawn announced. "I wanted to see what was making the noises."

Buffy opened her mouth to say something and then cut herself off, no less than three times. Watching her, amusement began to return to Dawn's face. Buffy giggled at herself, still a little loopy with afterglow.

"Hey guys," Willow interrupted. "The SGC just called. They wanna talk, like right now. I think things might be getting a bit... apocalypse-y."

"Apocalypse-y huh? _How_ apocalypse-y, exactly?" Xander asked.

"They didn't say," Willow admitted. "I told them we'd land at their base in an hour or two."

"Okay," Buffy said, ruffling Dawn's hair, then she blinked. "Wait, no, not okay. It's already morning in Sunnydale. Aw crud. My mom's gonna get all stern and lecture-y and with the grounding again."

"What if we told her the truth?" Xander suggested. "Why _can't_ we just land a shuttle in your back yard, explain, then bring your mom up here to get upgraded?"

Buffy paused. "Okay, we'll call that Plan B, alright? Hey, Willow, you can synthesize stuff now, right?"

Willow nodded. "Yep."

"If we're gonna go to like an actual official meeting thing, I think we should dress for it," Buffy said. "And I mean in Fae fashions, don't worry."

"Oh, uh, yeah," Willow agreed. "What did you have in mind?"

"For me?" Buffy asked. "I was thinking mostly metal, maybe a few ribbons..."

* * *

"Okay, everything will be waiting for us in the shuttle," Willow said.

"Awesome, Wills," Buffy complimented. "Alright, let's go."

Xander stopped. "Wait, what are we going to do with Dawn? She can't come with us. She'd be a hazard to ordinary humans."

"What are you talking about, Xander?" Buffy demanded.

"She's not even a day old, Buffy. She has almost no impulse control, or any understanding of how fragile humans are," Xander said softly.

Buffy frowned. "Well, we can't just leave her up here alone, can we?"

Dawn chose that moment to climb onto Xander's back and poke him in the ear. Xander playfully swatted her hand away and Dawn decided she wanted to chew on his ear instead.

"See what I mean?" Xander asked. "If she did this to a human, instead of cute it'd be a medical emergency."

Willow made a little thoughtful noise. "I know. Hey, Dawn. Come here, alright? Dawn?"

Dawn looked up and then scrambled over Xander's head, kicking him in the face in the process, and further proving his point. A human would have a broken nose after that. Willow bit her lip in amusement as she caught Dawn and booped her on the nose. Dawn giggled.

"I came to Willow!" Dawn announced.

"Yep! Now pay attention," Willow said. "I'm gonna do the education thing to you."

"Do it to me!" Dawn agreed.

Willow turned Dawn around and pulled them both down onto the squishy grass, so Dawn's back was to her chest and Dawn was slouched between Willow's legs. Dawn peered over her shoulder at Willow, wriggling into the embrace.

At Willow's command, a small panel, about a foot square, rose from the grass between Dawn's thighs, its side forming a mirror. Silently, Willow had Dawn look at the reflection of her vagina, while Willow slid her hands onto the back of Dawn's. Willow guided Dawn's hands, slowly exploring the features and folds of Dawn's sex. She guided Dawn's other hand to a breast, leading her in stimulation there as well.

Dawn made a cute little moaning sound, and her hands moved from beneath Willow's as she was caught up in the profound new sensations. Willow planted a kiss on Dawn's cheek and slid out from behind her. Buffy's mouth was hanging half open as she was once again looking supremely torn. Xander was just giving her a funny eyebrow.

"There. That should keep her occupied for a while," Willow asserted.

Stamping down a flicker of insecurity, Willow nodded resolutely and took Buffy and Xander by the arms. As she pulled them along, she sent the command for a shuttle to assemble itself.

Buffy shook herself and twined her hand into Willow's. "Right. Good thinking, Wills."

"So," Xander started as they reached the shuttle. "What did the SGC say, exactly?"

"Oh right, here," Willow said, forwarding a recording of her conversation through the Dreamlink.

The shuttle emerged into space and accelerated towards the moon's spinward horizon, while Xander and Buffy closed their eyes and watched the recording. Willow guided the shuttle to within a mile of the lunar surface as they used the moon's gravity to help bleed off a massive amount of orbital speed and begin their assisted fall towards Earth.


	7. Lost City

**Lost City**

"When did you decide?" Willow asked softly.

Buffy let her forehead rest against Willow's and smiled wryly. "The moment I ripped my clothes off in front of Ford. It was just suddenly so clear. It just hit me that this is so much bigger than the Slayer. How many people on Earth die in a day? Two-hundred thousand or more? How many of of those are 'cause of vampires?"

"Less than five thousand," Willow estimated.

Buffy nodded, turning to the side and slipping down to rest her head on Willow's chest, nuzzling a nipple with her chin. "I've been clinging to the hope of a normal life, and being Fae just seemed like one more thing taking that away from me. But, it's like, the stuff I've been clinging to since Halloween isn't stuff I actually care about, you know, for its own sake. And I realized, being stuck on it might cost the lives of people I care about. I just don't have _time_ to change my mind a little bit by bit..."

"Yeah," Willow agreed.

"Actually, I've been thinking about it," Xander said, sliding down onto Willow's other side and meeting Buffy's lips in the center of Willow's chest. "And... Venus."

"Venus? What about Venus?" Willow asked.

"We ask for it, or just claim it as ours outright," Xander said. "There's nothing there to preserve, so we could terraform it right now, couldn't we?"

"Um, since it wouldn't matter what got, uh, _grey-gooed_, yeah I can make a basic indiscriminate planetary environment seed," Willow said thoughtfully.

"But what do we need a new planet for?" Buffy asked.

"Okay, so go with me on this for a minute," Xander said, sitting up. "Willow covers Earth in sensor fog, and then sets up an alert that'll let her know when someone on Earth is about to die..."

"Uh, Xander, that's gonna be a lot more complicated than it sounds," Willow said. "I'm still a long way from understanding the _Eliezera_'s abstract reasoning functions, so I can't just order the ship to notice dying people. I'd have to write a notice-dying-people narrow AI from scratch. That's a big job."

Xander nodded. "That's okay, 'cause that gives me and Buffy time to pull off the other part of my plan."

"Okay," Buffy acknowledged. "What's the other part?"

"The _Prometheus_," Xander revealed. "We get our hands on it, either by convincing the SGC to help, or by tricking them, or by just plain stealing it, and we use the subspace matter transporters to grab everyone Willow's program finds, and stick them in a birthing pod on Venus. Or here, if Venus is out of range, and send the pods to Venus the slow way."

"Okay," Buffy said slowly, "but what's the point of the sending them to Venus?"

"Because we don't have a Giaa to keep the peace on Earth," Xander pointed out.

"He's right, Buffy," Willow said with a thoughtful nod. "Eelesia knew a bit of the history. Back in the days of the Antarctic Coherence, there were attempts. Fear and anger and fighting to maintain the status quo, even if the status quo was horrific. In some places anyone who was outed as seeking the upgrade was in danger of being mobbed and murdered, though with the Giaa Seed in control of the planet by then, mostly everybody was okay. China tried to launch nukes at Antarctica once, and it was only okay 'cause the Giaa Seed had control of the missiles."

Buffy grimaced.

"People already expect their human life to come to an inevitable end," Xander mused. "We can fight against the idea that it's _proper_ to die a natural death. We can try to change people's minds, try to..." Xander's lips quirked in a nostalgic smirk. "...raise the sanity waterline. But it'll be a lot more efficient to exploit that idea instead. People die, and then they vanish in a mysterious flash of light... People want to believe that dying is merely going somewhere else, and we can use that. We can take what lots of people already want to believe, and make it true."

"It's probably the best thing we can do," Willow agreed.

"I like it," Buffy declared. "Do you think you can pull it off, Wills?"

"I think so," Willow said, closing her eyes in concentration. "Whatever we do, we are probably going to need the sensor fog, though. I'll start making it now."

Below them, the Earth was growing. Once Willow opened her eyes, Buffy pulled her down for a heated kiss before pushing away and snatching up her outfit. Xander took a turn flying the shuttle, nudging their course to make sure they came down over the right area.

* * *

Captain Carl Grogan waited with the rest of SG-9 in the hanger off the helipad. The personnel elevator opened, and Carl straightened up when he recognized Dr. Jackson. Jackson nodded to him as he meandered over to the threshold of the hanger and looked up at the sky.

They were waiting for another ten minutes before Dr. Jackson took a step and said, "They're here."

Carl grabbed his radio and called it in as he waved his team forward. SG-9 had been briefed on the Fae an hour ago, but he was still surprised when something that looked like a giant greenish soap bubble dropped out of the sky from directly overhead.

It was silent and still as it slowed to a stop on the tarmac, but it still somehow produced a downwash like a small helicopter. The bubbleship touched down, and the wind vanished like it had never been. Three figures moved inside, passing through the bubble and out onto the ground. Carl only barely kept his mouth from hanging open, and if he hadn't been warned in the briefing, he might not have managed even that.

The voluptuous redhead in the middle was wearing a dark green corset-type thing that covered her from belly-button to solar plexus, laced with glinting white cords, emphasizing her bare breasts and hips. A criss-crossing of matching cords wrapped her upper arms, anchoring a set of gossamer green tassels that trailed from her shoulders. Colorful flowers were scattered in her hair and she had an ornate silver bracelet on her left shin, with more white cord criss-crossing up that leg.

The petite blonde on the left had what looked like polished triangular bars of gold bent into helices around her right thigh and left forearm, with matching gold spirals on her breasts, and a thin golden cord riding on her hips. Pleated tails of glimmering white cloth flared out from the waist cord, like someone had taken a floor-length skirt and removed all but two three-inch sections just behind the hips. She also had a pair of golden bracelets on each of her upper arms, trailing white ribbons.

Lastly, the sleekly muscular guy on the right was wearing a pair of dark red belts around his shoulders that crossed at his collarbone and the top of his spine, each running under one arm and over the other. A pair of matching belts circled each of his thighs, anchoring a black, red-ribbed covering on the outside of his thighs that went from his knee to a point above his hips. A pair of the red ribs followed his iliac lines, branching to meet at a rounded black diamond-shape that covered his navel and contrasted against the pale pinkish fleshtone of his manhood. The guy was... up. Gravity-defyingly so, flat against that patch of black.

The girls were gorgeous, and the guy was a walking recipe for male insecurity. Shaking himself, Carl mentally yanked his eyes back into his head and firmly reminded himself that he was a professional diplomat and that this was not the weirdest thing he'd had to deal with.

"Willow. Buffy. Xander," Dr. Jackson greeted, gesturing back towards Carl. "This is Captain Grogan and SG-9. They'll be escorting you around the base and answering any questions you have about our protocols."

Carl stepped forward. "Ma'am. Ma'am. Sir. If you'll follow me."

* * *

The planet glowed with the molten flows that covered its scorched crust. Anubis' flagship sank slowly towards the sole remaining artificial structure on the dying planet, ash and embers scattering as the massive ship's shields extended, encompassing the small Alteran outpost.

Anubis, with a squad of Kull warriors at his back, stepped off the ring platform and stalked towards the psionic control chair. His warriors spread around the dark and empty facility, but Anubis didn't expect to need them.

Twenty minutes later, Anubis' flagship rose away from the molten landscape. Inside the once-again dark and powerless Alteran outpost, beside the inactive control chair, a small Octagonal socket was open and empty.

* * *

"And these will be your temporary quarters, should you need to remain on base for any length of time," Lieutenant Veronica Hamilton explained.

Buffy peered into the room. "Well, it's very... clean. And right-angle-y."

"Thanks for, um, the consideration," Willow said, "but it's probably unnecessary."

"Just in case you're down here longer than you planned, Ma'am," Captain Grogan assured her.

"I actually meant, we don't need rest, so quarters are kind of superfluous," Willow told him.

That got some raised eyebrows. The other two members of SG-9 hadn't said much, and seemed to be strenuously refusing to look directly at any of the Fae. The two young male soldiers were obviously fighting blushes, but Grogan and Hamilton seemed successful at ignoring the Fae's state of dress, except for the occasional lingering glance. Grogan and his second exchanged a look.

"How does that work?" Captain Grogan asked.

"Really well," Xander joked, clapping his hands together. "So, where to next?"

Captain Grogan turned. "Lieutenant?"

"We're on schedule," she replied.

"To the briefing room, then," Captain Grogan announced.

The three Fae got a lot of stares as they traveled the concrete corridors. Willow privately marveled that she still wasn't feeling immodest or embarrassed. All the attention to her nudity just made her feel _otherly_, a constant reminder that she and Buffy and Xander were a piece of something _else_, outside the scope of earthly custom, and these people recognized that.

"Forgive me if this is rude, but I can't help my curiosity," Lieutenant Hamilton said. "Does your culture have a taboo about, uh, non-nudity?"

"Nope!" Buffy said.

"The only taboo we have is taboo itself," Xander stated sagely, getting an elbow from Willow.

"Clothing simply serves no purpose with us beyond ornamentation," Willow elaborated.

"But, if what you're wearing now is typical of your fashions, why is it... why does it leave you so, er, deliberately exposed?" Lieutenant Hamilton inquired.

"For much the same reason your fashions leave your face deliberately exposed, I expect," Willow told her, Buffy nodding in agreement.

Lieutenant Hamilton blinked at this answer, frowning thoughtfully.

Captain Grogan jogged ahead and spoke to an airman. The airman ran into the briefing room to alert Doctor Weir, returning shortly and giving Grogan a nod.

Buffy, Xander, and Willow filed into the big conference room type place. SG-1 was already seated, and Doctor Weir walked around the big wooden table to greet them.

"Thank you for being here," Doctor Weir said.

Willow shook Doctor Weir's hand. "Of course. By the way, I have a gift for you. Or rather, for Samantha Carter." Willow reached into her flower-adorned hair and pulled out something shiny and black about the size of a cell phone. She set it on the table.

"What is it?" Carter asked.

"A complete copy of our scientific database, formatted to be read by present day computers," Willow explained. "It won't be of much immediate practical value, but I expect it will provide you and your scientific community with many useful insights."

Carter stared at the innocuous-looking device, looking like she was barely resisting the urge to pull out her laptop and start going through the information right then and there.

"Your gift is much appreciated," Doctor Weir said.

Once they were seated, Jack O'Neill put his elbows on the table and asked, "So what were you folks doing in California?"

"Jack," Daniel Jackson warned.

"It's alright," Willow said. "We were visiting."

"Visiting," O'Neill repeated flatly.

"When we were first summoned to this universe, we weren't actually on our ship," Willow explained. "We appeared on the ground, in that town. Our ship didn't show up until some time after that. We don't know why the delay, though."

"We have friends there," Xander told them. "So yeah. Visiting."

"These friends of yours have names?" O'Neill asked.

"Yup," Buffy said, "but we're so not gonna repay their trust by ratting them out to you."

"We can understand that," Doctor Weir cut in, shooting the Colonel a quelling look.

"So anywho," Willow changed the subject. "The first time you asked us about trading technology, we couldn't really give you an answer, but I've learned a lot since then. We can offer you a few very useful things."

"Like what?" Carter asked curiously.

"Well, for an example of something I could do for you right now," Willow replied. "How about a bunch of high-capacity space elevators?"

Carter's jaw dropped. "Um, wow, that would be..."

"Conspicuous?" O'Neill finished.

"That's a generous offer, Willow, but there's no way we could conceal something like that from the general population," Daniel elaborated.

"So don't," Buffy said.

"I'm afraid its not that simple," Doctor Weir said, sounding genuinely regretful. "Though I'm curious as to what you would want in exchange for something like that."

"We're mostly interested in your subspace matter manipulators," Willow revealed. "Even with the Asgard limiters Major Carter told me about, even mere teleportation would be very useful to us."

"Because you plan to keep visiting?" O'Neill questioned.

"That, and other stuff," Willow agreed cheerfully.

"We'll have to confer with our superiors on that," Doctor Weir warned, "but we may be able to make such a deal, if certain conditions are met."

Willow nodded. "If you're not interested in space elevators with enough lift capacity to evacuate a majority of the Earth's population in the event of a planetary threat that cannot be stopped with luck and plucky heroism," Willow forced herself not to look at Buffy, "then how about a few tons of room-temperature superconductor?"

Carter choked.

Doctor Weir looked at her. "Major?"

"Ma'am, a room-temperature superconductor is widely considered one of the holy grails of materials science," Carter explained. "There are a number of technologies that we could theoretically build, if we had such a material. We've had some successes exploiting the pseudo-superconductive properties of refined naquadah, but a true room-temperature superconductor would be immensely useful."

"What's naquadah?" Xander asked.

Carter explained, "It's a rare super-dense mineral, with several exotic properties..." She went on to explain its liquid form had an unparalleled ability to produce energy, how it reacted with bioelectric fields to power some examples of goa'uld technology, how the crystal form produced subspace emanations, and how it could manipulate gravity, and so on.

"Oh, so it's basically Eezo," Xander blurted. "Gotcha."

Everyone, including Buffy and Willow, gave him the 'huh?' face. "Eezo?"

"Oh, its from a science fiction franchise Za - I liked from back during my human life," Xander explained. "Eezo was the magical substance that all the physics-breaking technology was based on."

Samantha Carter almost said something, before stopping herself and looking uncomfortable.

"So," Buffy cut in. "What's this major intelligence victory that Anubis pulled off?"

Doctor Weir stood up. "Why don't I let Dr. Jackson and Major Cater fill you in on that while I make some calls about your offers of trade."

The three Fae readily agreed, and Elizabeth Weir retreated to her office while Daniel Jackson began to explain about the Ancient Repository of Knowledge that was left behind by a precursor race called the Alterans.

"Where are these Alterans now?" Buffy asked.

Daniel adjusted his glasses. "Tens of thousands of years ago, the Alterans evolved to the point where they were able to shed physical form and Ascend to live as energy on a higher plane of existence. Since then, they've avoided interfering on our plane, because they discovered that in that form, they actually gained power from being worshiped, so they hold themselves apart to avoid the temptation to set themselves up as gods. A year ago I was one of them, but they took my memory and returned me to human form as punishment when I tried to use my power against Anubis."

"That is really not how evolution works," Xander muttered to himself.

Willow put up a hand. "Um, excuse me, but _how the flipping fiddly fable of fortune_did you actually encounter incorporeal consciousnesses that can continue to think and act without technology or biology or any material system, and can manipulate the universe through thought alone, and gain energy directly from being worshiped, and you didn't recognize it as magic when it was _staring you in the face_? You call yourself a scientist?"

"Hey now..." O'Neill defended.

"No, evolution _really_ does not work that way," Xander repeated.

Buffy reached over and put an arm around Willow's shoulders. "Come on, Wills, you're getting all worked up."

Willow abruptly glanced around the table and blushed faintly, sinking back down into her chair. "Ah, sorry, Major Carter. I didn't mean to be so blunt."

Samantha Carter nodded, her teeth on edge.

Buffy looked at Daniel and frowned thoughtfully. "So, if these Alteran guys are so non-interfere-y, what are you doing here?"

Daniel blinked. "Well, I'm not Alteran. I was dying of radiation sickness, and an Alteran called Oma who we'd met in the past came and helped me Ascend."

"So they do interfere in mortal affairs after all, when they can get away with it," Buffy said.

"Well..." Daniel trail off.

Willow's eyes flew wide. "Oh!"

Everyone looked at her, but Willow didn't elaborate. She just sat back in her chair looking stunned. For over a year Willow had been studying witchcraft, making small progress and struggling to understand it on a deeper level so she could wield the power of magic to help her friends. Sometimes she'd get a spell to work, but she never had any real idea why it worked.

And here, in a military base, a group of alien experts had inadvertently given her a huge clue. Willow would bet that this 'higher plane' wasn't a place existing in higher dimensions at all. After all, these guys had spaceships that traveled higher dimensions all the time, and there was a different-dimensional portal in Willow's high school. The place where Ascended Beings went wasn't a place at all. It couldn't be.

"Willow?" Xander prompted.

Minds, human and alien both, existing bodyless, outside the universe itself. Not physically outside the universe, which was nonsense, like trying to go to the center of the surface of a sphere. _Computationally_ outside the universe, yet causally linked to the universe and to each other, following a system of constant rules that recognized specific conscious phenomena: the fundamental laws of mental magic that operated across their multiverse without exception.

"Are you well, Willow Rin?" Teal'c intoned.

And through that system, the universe could be edited. A witch's spells invoked those 'higher' entities who were fully recognized by the system, since their consciousness was being explicitly enacted by the system. And the witch traded - well it wasn't exactly worship, that was an oversimplification, but a particular kind of attention, of mental exertion, perhaps - that the system recognized without any special prompting, and in exchange the invoked entity wills a piece of the quantum math to change. With each invocation, the system was prompted to recognize the witch's mind, and that degree of recognition directly translated to a witch's power level.

"Willow, what's up?" Buffy prodded.

The chain of inference wasn't rock solid, but it was promising. It was a disturbingly good explanation for why spells tended to go wrong in the particular ways they did. If she was right, there must be a way to get the system to increase its recognition of a mind without invoking an already-Ascended, if the Alterans really did develop their magic personally, without invocation. If that was true, no wonder they erased Daniel's memories. He must have known the secret that would free human mages from Alteran dependency, which would deprive them of the pseudo-worship-y mental energy that strengthened them. And it was exactly the sort of secret that might be hidden in that ancient repository that Anubis got his hands on, which meant...

"Um," Willow said faintly. "I think we might be... in trouble."

"What're you talking about?" Jack O'Neill asked.

"I think Anubis may be about to discover how to obtain unlimited magical power, from that repository thing," Willow revealed.

"Huh?" "What?" "Huh?"

"Actually, Willow," Daniel said. "Anubis already has all the powers of an Ascended Being. He was Ascended himself, until the others cast him out. He fought back somehow, and managed to retain his powers, but he's not allowed to use them. If he does use anything he got from being Ascended, the others will destroy him."

Willow nodded slowly. That fit with her hypothesis, if Anubis was returned to being a piece of their universe rather from being an independent process, but somehow got the system to continue its previous level of recognition. "Daniel? Do you remember anything at all from when you were one of them?"

Daniel shook his head. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I may have just found a hypothesis about the fundamental nature of psionic magic," Willow said bluntly.

Samantha Carter blinked.

Jack O'Neill kicked back in his chair. "As fascinating as all this is, can we get back to talking about how we're gonna not all die when Anubis decides to get off his incorporeal butt and come destroy us all? Thoughts? Ideas?"

"Unscheduled Offworld Activation!"

* * *

"I am afraid I am not the bearer of good news," the elderly jaffa warrior said as Jack, Teal'c, and Weir greeted him at the base of the embarkation ramp. "We've had word from jaffa loyal to our cause. Anubis has gathered the full force of his fleet. He will be here, in three days."

* * *

Bra'tac didn't bat an eye when he was introduced to the Fae, simply welcoming them as allies and asking about their capabilities. The assembled group went over the capabilities of goa'uld ships, and the capabilities of the _Eliezera_. Jack was impressed despite himself at little blonde Buffy's grasp of tactics.

"The problem is, we just can't protect the whole planet," Buffy summed up. "We can defeat any goa'uld ship in our line of sight, but a ha'tak is too fast to chase down, especially if you want us to stay out of low orbit."

"Wills, could we make new ships by the deadline?" Xander asked.

"Maybe," Willow said. "But what good would that do? I can't fly multiple ships at once, and there's no reason to think that whatever stripped the Giaa out of the_Eliezera_ wouldn't propagate to the assembly of new ships. I could probably figure something out if we had more time, but we just don't. Do we?"

"Now that Anubis possesses the knowledge of the ancestors, he will not be made wary by rumors of Ancient weaponry possessed by the Tau'ri," Bra'tac advised. "Any attempt to stall his attack through intimidation is likely futile."

"We need to lay an ambush," Buffy said. "How long would it take a ha'tak to re-enter hyperspace right after coming out?"

"Ten to twenty seconds, approximately," Carter informed her.

Buffy nodded. "So, we need a way of having the _Eliezera_ waiting within ten light-seconds of where Anubis' fleet is gonna pop up. Then we'll have a chance to to take them down before they scatter."

"Bra'tac, do you have anyone in a position to let us know Anubis' course?" Jack asked.

* * *

"It appears we will have but one opportunity," Bra'tac reported, handing a tablet over to Doctor Weir. "Anubis plans to pause his advance at this planet to bolster his ranks of jaffa."

"How long do we have?" Doctor Weir asked.

"Anubis' fleet is expected in less than ten hours," Teal'c told them.

"This is better than I was hoping for," Buffy put in. "If I can get on board Anubis' flagship, I can get to Anubis. The ambush will go a lot smoother if the bad guys get there and their leader's dead."

"Look, Buffy," Jack said. "We appreciate the help and we're glad to work with you and all that, but this is going to be a surgical military operation. We can't have a liability like - "

"I'm going," Buffy overrode him. "This is what I do, Colonel, and not to step on your ego and stuff but the fact is, I'm a better... _combat asset_, than your entire team put together."

"You think so, huh?" Jack challenged.

"Sir, it would be better to have multiple plans in place," Carter put in. "We could use a personal assault on Anubis as a distraction and a cover for a second team to join the fleet covertly with an encrypted subspace transponder, allowing us to track their approach to Earth."

"The problem with that, is that if Buffy slays Anubis, that might stall this attack, but there'll still be a huge invasion fleet sitting there just waiting for some wanna be big bad to claim it. There's no telling how long that would take, how long the infiltration team would have to keep their cover," Xander pointed out. "Our goal is to stop the invasion, yeah, but it's to _stop_ the invasion, not just delay it, right?"

"Indeed," Teal'c contributed.

"What if I sneak on board myself?" Buffy suggested. "I can do the stealthy thing. The best time to strike might be right when Anubis begins his attack. If I go alone, I could even serve as a targeting beacon for the _Eliezera_. That would make your vulnerable human selves the liability, Colonel. I could survive anything but a direct hit, and I trust Willow's aim."

Willow gulped, but nodded resolutely.

"So, what, with the world at stake, you expect us to sit around twiddling our thumbs while you execute this op all by your lonesome?" Jack demanded. "That's way to much riding on a single point of failure."

"Buffy, I think maybe it's time for some showing off," Xander said. "They've never seen you in action."

Jack got a raised eyebrow from Buffy, and turned inquiringly to Doctor Weir, who's expression was suddenly alarmed. Jack spun back, only to find Buffy's chair empty.

"Where'd she go?" Jack snapped as the rest of his team slammed their chairs back and looked under the conference table.

A pair of thumps alerted made everyone spin towards the doors, where the pair of MPs were unconscious on the floor. Willow and Xander were still in their seats, looking slightly smug.

"What was that? What's she doing?" Doctor Weir demanded.

"Demonstrating," Willow said evenly. "Buffy says you have ten minutes to stop her from stealing your Stargate." Her eyes widened. "Oh don't worry! She wont actually take it! She's just trying to make a point. But yeah, ten minutes."

Jack was already moving towards the lockdown alarm, and the air was filled with the sound of alarm klaxons. He snatched a base phone up and started snapping out orders. Willow was probably telling the truth, but he wasn't going to take the chance she wasn't.

* * *

Nearly ten minutes later, Jack watched as the little nude blonde woman streaked into the gate room with a crash of torn metal, a Zat in each hand and a pair of staff weapons floating without visible support over her shoulders. She paused, hovering fifteen feet in the air, to smirk at Jack.

This was the first time in ten minutes anyone in the base even saw her long enough to identify her. He'd been getting reports of soldiers dropping unconscious for no apparent reason, and a fleshtone blur appearing in completely unpredictable places, shrugging off weapons fire like it was nothing, and just generally being made to look like fools.

Buffy tossed away her four weapons and tapped her wrist, giving Jack a raised eyebrow. Moments later a squad of marines along with Teal'c and Bra'tac moved in and opened fire.

The petite bare-skinned blonde just folded her arms and hovered in mid air as bullets and staff blasts struck brutal blows, suppressing a grimace of pain. She darted backwards two feet, and caught the incoming staff blasts in her Utility Cloud, surrounding herself with a whirling torus of orange plasma.

Her attackers dove for cover as some of their bullets were sprayed out from their target in molten form while others joined the spinning torrent of fiery death. Meanwhile, Buffy turned to the massive power cables hooked up to the Stargate, and without visible movement on her part, the cables and clamps detached themselves.

Buffy flew above the Stargate and swept her arms upward, sending a torrent of energized plasma and molten lead drilling upwards through the blast doors in the ceiling.

Looping down to the top of the Stargate, Buffy gripped it under the rim and, straining with effort, lifted it from its moorings and carried it up the shaft towards the surface.

* * *

"Well, if it makes you feel better, Colonel, you guys did manage to wreck my outfit," Buffy offered generously. "But I think I've made my point."

Jack O'Neill scowled down at her while behind him Samantha Carter and an army of technicians along with Willow Rin scrambled to reconnect the Stargate to the base's systems. "And what if it takes us more than nine hours to get the gate working again?"

"I was careful not to damage any of the stuff you had hooked up to it," Buffy pointed out petulantly.

"Your capabilities are indeed fearsome, Buffy Reaval," Teal'c contributed.

"Yeah, about that." Jack pointed accusingly. "You can fly!"

"Well, not really," Buffy denied.

"Not really? Then what the hell was all that?" Jack demanded, waving towards the Stargate.

"Magnets!" Buffy proclaimed.

Jack blinked. Teal'c blinked. Daniel stared at Jack, and promptly cracked up. Buffy gave Daniel a confused look, because he was clearly laughing at Jack, but she couldn't figure out what was so funny.

"Aht da ta!" Jack snapped, stalling Daniel's laughter but not his mirth. He gave Buffy a long searching look. "I still don't like it. But, just maybe, you're our best shot."

* * *

Jack watched uncomfortably as Buffy gave Willow a lingering kiss.

"Go be sneaky," Willow told her.

Buffy fidgeted with the SGC tactical vest that Jack had talked her into taking, as she stepped back and glanced towards the shimmering blue of the active Stargate. Willow retreated to Xander's side and put an arm around his waist.

"We'll be ready," Xander said.

"I know," Buffy said, giving them a dry smile, like there was something she wanted to say, but stopped herself with a glance at the various SGC personnel present.

Buffy turned and looked up at the open Stargate. Then, she moved, and Jack had to suppress a flinch as the diminutive blonde shot forward. She cleared the embarkation ramp in a single step, hurtling into the event horizon at nearly thirty miles per hour.

As the Stargate shut down, Willow and Xander shared a look and gave Jack a nod. Without another word, the pair of Fae lifted into the air and flew up the shaft above the Stargate. Their movements were slower and shakier than Buffy's seemingly effortless flight, but they disappeared up into the passage quick enough.

Willow and Xander pulled themselves up by the metal reinforcement in the concrete walls, gaining as much speed as they could before they shot out the top of the mountain. Willow was already controlling the shuttle to come intercept them. Finally they rocketed up into cold open air, their ascent slowing with gravity.

Under Willow's control, the shuttle came streaking out from behind the rocks and caught them before they could start to fall. Willow bounced off the inside of the shuttle and settled herself in the center of the sphere, and the shuttle blasted upwards with a sonic boom.

* * *

"My lord, I'm reading another anomaly on the internal sensors," First Prime Her'ak reported dutifully from the pel'tack control console. "This one appears to be on the superweapon maintenance level. Shall I send a squad to investigate?"

"No," Anubis rumbled. "The hour of our victory approaches. We have greater concerns than these minor glitches. I will deal with the responsible incompetents in due time."

Her'ak bowed. "Your command, my lord?"

"When we arrive at the Tau'ri homeworld, you will lead the attack in my stead," Anubis ordered hollowly. "There is a task I must see to in secrecy."

"Yes, my lord."

* * *

Willow watched with half an eye from her perch on the large round fleshy cushion she had raised in a little hollow between two trees, as Dawn did her level best to rape Xander. He was fending her off playfully, and Dawn was laughing at the game. Apparently, after spending something like thirty straight hours masturbating, Dawn had put one and one together and figured out just what that big firm phallic appendage of Xander's was for.

A small part of Willow still found the idea of Buffy's young daughter trying to molest Xander to be disturbing, but thanks to Eelesia she remembered what had happened when the First Generation had tried to impose their behavioral standards on their Fae offspring. Nearly an entire generation simply shut their parents out of their early lives. It was hard to lie to one's kids about things like sexuality when they were born physically mature with perfect eidetic recall and a Dreamlink. It was hard to enforce one's authority when one's kids weren't dependent on their parents for anything material.

It was a simple story that had repeated countless times in those early days. There simply wasn't any point in trying to convince a young Fae that their urges were wrong.

So, Xander was playing, keeping it light-hearted as he fended off Dawn's attempts to grab him by the cock and impale herself, as though it were an innocent tickle-fight, because in a very real way that's the sort of thing it was. Also because it would be irresponsible to expose Dawn to the concept of shame before she was old enough to handle it.

Willow took a moment to giggle into her hand as Xander hefted Dawn by her waist with the young girl sideways, her head down behind Xander's knees and her legs kicking in the air. It was the quiet before the storm, in a sense. The ship was as ready for battle as it was going to get, and she and Samantha Carter were both sure she was at least over the correct hemisphere to avoid putting the Earth between them and Anubis' fleet. It was just a matter of waiting for Buffy's Dreamlink signal to reappear, now.

Shutting her eyes, Willow returned to her work on what she'd come to call her Salvation Seeker Program. Just because they didn't have the subspace transporters yet, didn't mean she couldn't work on the meat of the problem. Drawing on every bit of knowledge she could think to look for, she was slowly gathering the pieces she'd need to write a search algorithm that sifted through the massive data influx from the sensor fog that now covered Earth, looking for... dying people. Such simple words, just four syllables, and yet defining those words in rigorous mathematical terms was by far the most daunting project she'd ever set herself to.

She'd get it right though. She would. Literally everyone's life was at stake. Three people died every time her heart beat, and that was just on Earth. With a sense of surrealness, Willow realized that if Anubis' invasion lasted even just one day, delaying Willow's work, the toll in lives lost to natural causes could easily exceed the number of lives lost in the actual conflict.

Willow continued mapping the SSP out in her head, her mind a storm of research, abstraction, and math. Perfect eidetic recall was so useful.

* * *

"No, no, I'm sure she's fine," Rupert Giles assured Joyce Summers over the phone.

"So you do know where she is?" Joyce inquired in a dangerously calm tone.

Giles rubbed his forehead. "Ah, not as such, no."

Joyce hung up shortly after that, and Giles sighed as he looked around the empty library.

"Where is that blasted girl?"

* * *

With a whorl of blue plasma, the massive flagship of Anubis' fleet dropped out of hyperspace just outside the orbit of the moon. In its wake, the star-filled black lit up as dozens of hyperspace windows produced a vast fleet of ha'tak and al'kesh.

From the flagship, a single tel'tak emerged and cloaked as it accelerated towards the Earth's southern pole.

* * *

"Mr President, a short time ago, our space-based radar detected over three dozen Goa'uld vessels emerging from hyperspace," General John Jumper reported without preamble.

"It would appear Anubis doesn't know about our newest allies," General George Hammond noted. "Those numbers are consistent with our estimates of Anubis' forces. I think we can safely assume the Fae operative has avoided detection."

President Henry Hayes paused as the lights in the oval office began to dim. The air in the center of the room warped, and a circle the height of a man shimmered like a hole was being cut in the air, forming a perfect window through which the bridge of a Goa'uld ship was visible. Most prominently, standing before the portal was a jaffa with the gold marker of a First Prime, flanked by a pair of Kull, with an ominous hooded figure further back on a golden throne.

The president's advisers scrambled away as secret service rushed into the room and started firing into the portal.

"Hold your fire! It's a hologram!" General Jumper shouted.

President Hayes straightened up and walked towards the portal.

"I am Her'ak, First Prime to the one true god, Anubis," the jaffa announced. "In Anubis' name, you will submit, or you will be destr - "

Suddenly, a small girlish figure plummeted into view from above, smashing down on the figure in the golden throne with an electrified fist. The black-cowled figure fizzled out in a shower of sparks as the blonde Fae's fist put a crater in the seat of the throne, revealing him for a hologram.

Her'ak made an undignified noise of surprise, whirling around as he went for his Zat. The blonde Fae closed the distance in a single step and Anubis' First Prime died with a broken neck before he could even activate his weapon. She spun, kicking one of the Kull in the chest hard enough to send him flying across the room and dent the wall. The other opened fire on her, but she just shrugged off the hits and grabbed the arm with the blaster. She forced it up under the Kull's chin, breaking through the armor with a two-finger strike and allowing the plasma bolts to penetrate.

"Holy mother of..." someone whispered.

Buffy looked through the portal into the oval office, and spoke aloud for their benefit. "Willow. Open fire."

* * *

It was like a thread of greenish light, stretching through space. Innocuous, even sort of pretty, and not very impressive, but as that thread swept through the great mothership, there was a flare brighter than the sun as the shields were pierced and the ship was first cut in half, then ripped into shrapnel by the secondary shockwave, all in less than a heartbeat.

The shock was like nothing Buffy had ever experienced before. It completely overwhelmed her senses, and also actually hurt her, badly enough that her pain receptors cut off. The first comprehensible thing Buffy became aware of was that she was tumbling through space, and her skin was numb. Her eyes weren't working right, but she still had enough intact skin on the side that hadn't been facing the explosion to regenerate her Utility Cloud, and she used that to look around.

It was like being in a nest of stars, as dozens of ha'taks were ripped apart in silence by the sheer kinetic impact of the _Eliezera_'s tightly focused reaction mass. Turning her sight onto her own body, she saw that the skin over half of her body was some odd combination of bruised, scraped, and burned. They weren't really directly comparable to human injuries; the internal composition of her tissues was just too different.

A subsystem of her morph settings prodded her awareness, informing her that she'd be healed in about forty minutes. Make that eight minutes, taking Slayer healing into account. Eight minutes. Eight minutes to recover from what was effectively a small nuke going off in her face. Sometimes, Buffy loved being Fae.

* * *

The reports came in. One ha'tak had fled into hyperspace, but four others had managed to disperse into Earth orbit before the Fae ship could destroy them. One of those was damaged from a graze that drew a line of fire across the upper atmosphere over Australia, lighting up the night like a second sun.

"George, I believe I have one more job for you," President Hayes said.

Moments later, General George Hammond departed to take command of the Prometheus and hunt down the remaining Goa'uld ships.

* * *

_Nice aim, Wills,_ Buffy sent.

_Buffy? Are you okay?_ Willow sent back.

_Yeah,_ Buffy replied. _I could use a ride, though._

_A shuttle is on the way,_ Willow promised.

_Awesome,_ Buffy replied. _How did we do?_

_Four of the big ships managed to scatter into low orbit,_ Willow informed her. _I'm moving the Eliezera into an elliptical polar orbit. The SGC says they're sending their ship out to help hunt down the motherships. Xander wants to take a shuttle and go after the smaller support craft._

_That's a good idea,_ Buffy sent. _I'll join him with my shuttle as soon as it gets to me._

* * *

Deep under the ice of Antarctica, a ring platform activated. A flash of light and the rings sank back out of sight, leaving the cowled figure of Anubis standing alone on the platform.

The ship that had destroyed most of his fleet was unknown to him, but soon that wouldn't matter. He'd made the right decision to come for the Alteran outpost immediately and in person.

Moving like a ghost, he found his way to the control chair. He knelt on the dais and produced a glowing orange ZPM from his black robes. With deliberate unhesitating motions, he removed the depleted ZPM and replaced it.

The outpost lit up around him as it recognized his power. Triumphantly, Anubis sat in the control chair.

* * *

"Blue Squadron, you are go for launch," came General Hammond's order.

Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell opened the throttle of his F-302 and screamed out of the _Prometheus'_ hangar bay, followed by the rest of his squadron. Behind him, the_Prometheus_ turned to engage the ha'tak mothership as orange plasma splashed on the smaller battleship's shields.

There were three al'kesh in range, and handful of death gliders, coming to aid the ha'tak. Mitchell barked orders, arranging his forces and assigning targets, and battle was joined.

The first run did some satisfying damage to one of the al'kesh, but required some wild evasion to dodge the return fire from the heavy bomber's cannons. A deathglider lined up for a shot. Mitchell cut thrust and pitched down hard, cutting an arc with his guns and blowing off a piece of the deathglider's wing. He slammed the throttle up and shot off in an entirely different direction, curving to rejoin his wingman.

A narrow miss streaked by the canopy as a new trio of deathgliders came in at high speed. Mitchell pulled up hard and returned fire, but the deathgliders were already breaking away and taking up a new attack vector. A plasma blast struck his wingman and that F-302 erupted in a fiery explosion.

"Shit," Mitchell swore.

"Mitch we got two more coming in on our seven," his co-pilot Adam Banks warned.

"I see 'em."

Cameron Mitchell was a very good pilot, but space combat was hardly a refined art form. All of the hard-won experience and wisdom fighter pilot training might call on assumed an atmosphere, gravity, and aerodynamics. F-302 pilots were a new breed, and they were learning fast, but they were still learning.

Cameron twisted his plane out of a crossfire and launched a missle, but, "Fuck! Banks, where's number three?"

A plasma bolt grazed the wing, answering that question. Mitchell hesitated a split-second before yawing left hard, a move that was suicide in an atmosphere, and the delay left him right in the deathglider's sights.

Suddenly, a barely-visible thread of greenish light lanced right through the deathglider, and the Goa'uld fighter erupted like someone had stuffed the cockpit entirely full of C4.

"Holy shit, are you seeing this, Banks?" Mitchell gaped.

Something that looked like a soap bubble flitted through the battle, those little lances of green snapping out in every direction, never once missing or needing a second shot. Mitchell watched as the bubble flitted into the path of a plasma blast from the last al'kesh. There was no flare of a shield, but the bubble merely wibbled under the impacts. A moment later another green thread lanced out and cut the al'kesh into smoldering halves.

"Is that... a naked blonde girl?" Banks asked faintly.

Sure enough, as they flew into formation, the bubble passed close enough for Mitchell to make out the female figure inside. The bubble seemed to deliberately slow, pulling around to hang in front of the reformed Blue Squadron at close range. She gave a little salute, and then spun around and streaked off at what had to be something like sixty Gs. Mitchell noticed that she turned, but the bubbleship didn't, it just moved it whichever direction.

"I don't know what that was, but I want one," Mitchell breathed.

"Yeah, she was seriously hot," Banks agreed.

Mitchell snorted. "Oh yeah, but I was talking about her ship."

* * *

Xander cut another of the big silver ships into scrap, and looked down at a strange golden light that suddenly appeared on the icy white continent below. His eyes went wide in alarm as he made out what looked like an almost organic column of glowing gold sprouting into space far to quickly to be anything terrestrial. It was heading right for where the _Eliezera_ was approaching in its new orbit.

_Willow! Incoming!_ Xander sent as he rocketed towards the rising column.

Once he got closer, he could make out that the golden light was made up of a swarm of smaller glowing things. As the golden swarm neared the _Eliezera_, it fountained, splitting up into dozens of smaller streams that curved around the massive pearlescent ovoid ship before arcing in towards it. Streams of relativistic radon lanced out, cutting explosive holes in the golden swarm.

Xander noticed that the swarm didn't seem to want to maintain more than a dozen or so separate streams, but at the same time Willow was having a hard time hitting multiple targets at once.

A stream of the swarm struck the hull like... like nothing Xander could think to compare it to. A rapid sequence of explosions, blending into an almost constant flare. He could actually see the hull discolor as vast amounts of energy were dissipated across the whole of the ship, and for a moment he thought the ship was standing up to the assault, but then a greatly diminished stream of the swarming golden glows erupted from the opposite side of the ship.

Xander's mouth fell open and he forgot to control his shuttle as he watched the golden swarm rip its way straight through something like twenty miles of of starship. What the hell were those things? Granted, the interior of the ship was orders of magnitude less tough than the hull, and that was a relatively thin cross section of the generation ship, but still.

More streams penetrated the Eliezera, and Xander watched in helpless shock.

_Oh crap! Xander, those things are breaching the fusion core! I'm about to go nova over here!_ Willow sent.

And it happened. There was a blinding flash and a nimbus of nuclear fire as the_Eliezera_ ripped itself into two ragged halves. One of the halves was still firing on the swarming golden things, and Xander watched as it maneuvered itself back towards the severed half, matching its velocity. As soon as it got close enough, the dead half revived and resumed firing as well.

_Willow!_ Xander sent urgently.

_Holy moley,_ Willow replied. _Xander! We're running on nothing but stored power now, and we're already low on radon from chasing ha'tak all over the place. I don't know how long I can keep this up._

Xander grunted in frustration, and then he had an epic lightbulb moment. _Willow! Those things came from the surface! Here!_ He sent the image from his memory of where the golden light first appeared.

For an eternity of two whole seconds, Willow stopped firing entirely, and then a single glimmering thread struck at the planet, carving a line of fire down through the atmosphere. Another blinding flash, and the swarm of golden glowy things just went dark and died, while a mushroom cloud bloomed over Antarctica.

* * *

"Everything shook a lot and then it got really warm and then the air went away for a while, but its back now," Dawn summed up her take on the battle, making Xander smile and Buffy shake her head.

"Antarctica is never going to be the same," Willow lamented, closing her eyes. "I thought I held back enough, but just look at it! Antarctica is so not supposed to be that color!"

"Well, nobody's talking about global nuclear winter," Xander pointed out. "So I think you hit Anubis just hard enough."

"We didn't know that was Anubis, and we were only guessing it would stop the drones," Willow fretted.

Buffy patted Dawn on the head and floated up to hug Willow from behind, pressing her breasts into the red-head's back. "You did good, Wills."

Xander joined them, making a Willow samwich as he gave her a gentle kiss. Willow sighed and gave her two best friends a sheepish smile. Her expression firmed up and she nodded.

"Right, so first things first," Willow said. "Refuel and restock the ship, then get back to work on the SSP. You guys should talk to the SGC about the matter transporters, or else start planning how to steal them... uh, maybe after Buffy checks in at home?"

Buffy winced. "My mom is going to kill me."


	8. BONUS CHAPTER Eelesia Rin Omake

**BONUS CHAPER**  
**Eelesia Rin Omake**

For the second time in as many days, Eelesia Rin found herself in a strange place, with no response from the Overlink. As she picked herself up off the warm, packed sand, she took a look at herself, and saw that at least this time, she was back to her normal appearance. Buxom, sleekly muscled, with bone white skin, jet black hair, and vividly violet eyes in a welcoming heart-shaped face.

There was a sun shining brightly overhead, and rocky hills in the far distance. Great swaths of swaying grass-like plants covered the lands. Peering up at the sky, Eelesia was fairly sure that it was real, same as last time, but she couldn't see anything beyond that.

_Lyn? Zach?_ Eelesia tried, but there was no one to receive.

The last thing she remembered before arriving in this grassy desert, she'd been on board the copy of the _Eliezera_, having sex with Lyn and Zach, but it looked like this time whatever it was that happened, hadn't brought them with her.

She wondered for a moment if she was a _third_ magically created copy of Eelesia Rin, but decided it didn't really matter. She'd already accepted that she was a magically created duplicate of the original Eelesia Rin after realizing she was in a magical universe the first time.

Shrugging, Eelesia picked an interesting-looking direction and started walking.

* * *

Eelesia walked for days, but such was not much of a hardship for a Fae.

She was alone in the desert, until one evening when she spotted movement. Eelesia watched as what could be called a _wall_ of men riding horses crested a rise. It wasn't long before the riders spotted the pale gleam of her nude skin, and Eelesia quickly found herself being circled by muscular tanned men on horseback, clad in sewn hides and wearing bladed weapons.

Eelesia studied their faces curiously, noting a mix of reactions, ranging from wary fear to naked lust. She blinked as her eyes landed on a still-bleeding scratch on one man's arm. They were human, she realized, like in the last place she found herself.

Those circling her pulled back as a larger man with his hair in a long braid woven with little bells reined his mount to a halt before her.

"Hello," Eelesia greeted serenely. "Do you understand these words?"

Eelesia repeated the question in all of the seventeen languages she knew, but the long-braided man merely stared at her, his expression unreadable. There was low whispering among the other riders, until the long-braided man, without moving his gaze, rumbled out an order in a calm, commanding tone.

"I'll take that as a no," Eelesia said.

The horses parted, and a younger man with short hair came forward with a youthful woman sitting behind him. She dismounted with the ease of long practice and came towards Eelesia.

"Do you know my words?" the girl asked in something very similar to english.

Eelesia nodded. "I do. My name is Eelesia Rin. Can you tell me where I am?"

The long-braided man spoke, and the girl translated, "You face Khal Drogo's horde. The Khal asks who your people are, and how you came to be wandering the Dothraki Sea in not but your skin."

"My people are called Fae," Eelesia answered. "I woke up in the desert, with no memory of how I came to be there."

"Are there others of your people in these lands?" the girl translated.

"No," Eelesia replied.

The man apparently called Khal Drogo said something else, and then wheeled his horse and continued on without waiting for a reply.

"The Khal says you may travel with, and shelter with, his khalasar, but you will not be provided for, and must find your own food and fashion your own tools," the girl said.

Eelesia just smiled. "No problem there. What's your name?"

The young man she arrived with rode up next to her, and she reached up to clasp his arm. The two spoke a few words, and the girl said, "I am Irri. This is Rakharo. We ride now, while light remains."

* * *

With the sunset, the khalasar made camp, erecting a small town's worth of sturdy leather tents.

Many of the men watched her with wary eyes, but several others came up to her and started touching her as they loosened their trousers of hide and rough cloth. Eelesia went along with it, having no reason to refuse their sexual overtures, but there was a small scuffle between the five men, presumably over who would fuck her first. The men were all remarkably similar, so she didn't have much of a preference herself, but she was a bit worried one of the fragile humans might be hurt. Unfortunately, she'd only picked up about a dozen words of the language and couldn't do much to mediate.

Once the fight was over, fortunately with only scratches and bruises, the first man pushed her to her knees and bent her over, grabbing her hips as he sank himself into her. Eelesia sighed in pleasure, moaning through two orgasms before the first man finished.

Eelesia did think it was kind of strange how they only fucked her one at a time, and always insisted on the same position. She made a note to ask about that once she'd learned the Dothraki language.

More of the men made advances on her after that, emboldened by those first five men, and over the next several days she had sex with several hundred riders in Drogo's khalasar. Most of them were fairly boring lovers, but Eelesia didn't really mind for the time being. She did wonder why it was only men who came to fuck her.

The whispers and curious-to-somewhat-spooked glances sent her way when they thought she wasn't looking, had died down after that first night, but were now growing steadily worse. Eelesia figured it wasn't worth worrying about, though. It wasn't a hostile kind of feeling she was getting from them.

* * *

Eelesia found Irri sitting on a flat rock near a bonfire, stitching some sort of leather bracer together with a crude needle. Eelesia went to sit next to the girl, the rock warm, hard, and slightly powdery under her bare butt.

Irri glanced up, and Eelesia smiled in greeting. "Good evening, Irri."

Irri paused in her stitching. "There is talk of your strangeness." She repeated the sentence in Dothraki out of habit, for the sake of Eelesia's learning, as she resumed sewing.

"Is that bad?" Eelesia asked.

"It is not known," Irri said. "I hear tell that for a tenday no man or woman has seen you eat, nor drink of water. You wear no cloth or hide, yet your unnatural fair skin does not burn under the light of day. The riders whisper of strange sorceries, when they do not boast of your cunt. You are not known."

Eelesia pondered how to explain while she asked another question. "Irri, since I've traveled with this khalasar, hundreds have wanted sex with me, but all of them were men and not one of them a woman. Why is that?"

"Such play is only for when there are no men who wish a mount," Irri said. "It is known."

Eelesia nodded, accepting that as one more Dothraki cultural quirk. She'd learned that there was little point in asking for details about something that 'is known'.

Eelesia reached an arm around Irri's back and lightly caressed the exposed skin above her hip. "There seem to be no men wishing to mount either of us right now. Would you like to play with me?"

Irri looked at her in surprise. "I... I cannot. I must finish this." She held up her sewing. "Then I must return to Rakharo."

Eelesia smiled. "Alright. May I see your needle for a moment?"

Irri paused, confused, but slipped it off the cord and handed it over. Eelesia held it in the palm of her hand, and probed its composition with her Utility Cloud. She smiled when she realized it was mostly iron. She got up and went to the bonfire, snagging a piece of blackened wood from the edge of the flames.

"Eelesia, your hand," Irri gasped as Eelesia returned to her seat.

"I'm fine," Eelesia reassured her.

Eelesia cupped her hands, so it wouldn't be too obvious what she was doing from a distance, and suspended the cinder and the crude iron needle in her Utility Cloud. Irri's eyes went wide as she saw the two objects float seemingly without support.

Eelesia arranged her Utility Cloud into a magnetic scaffold around the needle, and ran an electric current through the metal until it was glowing white-hot. Irri sat frozen, watching the pale nude woman stare in concentration at the glow cupped between her hands.

A short while later, the glow had faded and Eelesia blinked and looked up, holding out something silver and gleaming. Irri took the new needle from Eelesia's palm with slightly shaky fingers.

"It's stainless steel," Eelesia said. "Much stronger than iron, and it will never rust."

"I have heard tales of such things, but never seen," Irri said, examining the large needle closely. "How is this possible?"

"Among my people," Eelesia said. "My strangeness is not strange. My home is not within the lands of Essos or Westeros. I come from a place that is beyond the sky, and in that place I am unremarkable, but I am not the same as the men and women of Essos and Westeros."

* * *

The first time Eelesia spoke the Dothraki language, it was in anger.

She came upon a trio of large men, surrounding a young girl. They were handling her roughly. Her clothes were torn, she had bruises on her arms, and her lip was bleeding. This wasn't an entirely unfamiliar sight in the khalasar, but in this case the girl couldn't have been older than twelve, and she was whimpering in pain and crying freely.

With a frown, Eelesia stalked up behind the one who had grasped the girl by the throat, and grabbed his wrist, forcing his hand open as she shoved him away.

"What is wrong with you no-heart beasts?" Eelesia demanded. "Can you not see her tears?"

The one she had shoved regained his balance with an angry grunt and backhanded Eelesia hard enough to knock teeth out of a human. Eelesia didn't think about it, she just hit back out of habit. There was a sickening crunch as her uppercut broke the man's jaw and sent him sprawling onto his back in the dirt.

Eelesia didn't have time to feel sheepish. The other two men dropped the girl and drew blades, coming at her with a snarl. On reflex, Eelesia met the first stab with a palm strike, shattering the blade as it failed to penetrate her hand.

With a sigh, Eelesia restrained herself. These were humans, and while they couldn't hurt her, she could easily hurt them, so she really couldn't justify fighting back against them. She wasn't in any danger.

They stabbed, slashed, and beat on her with increasing frustration and fear, while a crowd watched in shocked silence. The man who'd been behind the young girl, in the process of raping her, threw away his bent blade and tried to strangle Eelesia. He crushed her neck with all his strength, picking her up and slamming her head against the ground, then lifting her and throwing her.

Eelesia touched down with one hand and rolled gracefully back to her feet, facing him. He came at her again.

"Stop!" came the bellowed roar in Khal Drogo's voice.

The men froze, and the crowd parted as the Khal himself strode onto the scene.

"Explain," the Khal rumbled.

At this, everyone but Eelesia started talking at once, until the Khal barked for silence. He eventually got the story from the men and the spectators, and strode up to Eelesia.

"What sort of creature are you, pale woman?" the Khal asked.

"I told you on the day I met your horde, Khal," Eelesia said respectfully. "I am Fae."

Khal Drogo snorted. "Whatever you are, you will not interfere with a mounting. A man has the right to what, or who, he is strong enough to take."

Eelesia brushed that off. "The girl was distraught, and your men did not care or take notice of this. If they have the right to ignore her anguish, I have the right to ignore theirs."

"No," Khal Drogo said. "You do not."

The Khal turned and strode off, ignoring Eelesia's dissatisfied frown. "Well. That's hardly fair."

* * *

Months later, Daenerys Targaryen was sitting beside the pillar of masculinity that was Khal Drogo, glancing nervously at him whenever she let her gaze wander. Ser Jorah Mormont sat a step below her, translating and explaining the parts of the celebration for her.

Daenerys' eyes were drawn to the side, as a cluster of Dothraki came into sight, and the unknowing dragonsouled girl spotted an anomaly in the sea of tan flesh and dark hide. Skin fairer than Daenerys' own, hair darker than a raven's wings, and a breathtaking figure that jiggled as she rutted with the nearest man.

"Ser Jorah, who is that?"

The knight followed her gaze. "Ah. She is called Eelesia Rin. The Dothraki say she walked out of the desert without a thread on her, impossibly hale, without any sign of the sun on her skin. They say she comes from a land beyond the sky, where great magicks are common. That she does not sleep. That she fought three warriors at once to defend a young girl from rape, and that steel breaks on her flesh."

Daenerys narrowed her eyes in interest. "Is it true, Ser Jorah?"

"Perhaps," the knight confided. "I know it is true that she goes unclad and yet her skin does not redden, and I have seen a blade break on her flesh with my own eyes."

Daenerys turned to him. "You've seen her perform such magic? Truly."

"Indeed, my lady," Jorah Mormont confirmed.

Daenerys didn't take her eyes off the unusual woman until it was time to accept her gifts.

* * *

Eelesia quietly crept along the rocks, making no sound as she snuck up on Khal Drogo and his new wife. The silver-haired girl had apparently never had sex before, and would be expected to tonight, and Eelesia was curious how it would go.

She came upon the Khal and the Khaleesi in a sandy clearing between rocks and grass, and stilled to watch.

Both Drogo and the young Daenerys were naked, with Drogo seated against a rock, and Daenerys on his lap with her back to his chest. He had one hand between her legs, stroking her folds, while the other caressed her breasts. His lips tickled her shoulder, and Eelesia saw him say something. With her eyes shut, Daenerys nodded hesitantly, and Drogo reached down to position his cock at her opening.

Eelesia was impressed. She didn't think the Khal had it in him to be so tender.

Drogo adjusted his hips and guided Daenerys with his hands, sinking into her with one firm thrust. Daenerys winced, and then trembled as he drew out. Drogo kept them moving like that, slow and firm. It was clear that Daenerys wasn't entirely comfortable, but it was also obvious that she was well on her way to an orgasm.

Eelesia crawled backwards and slipped away.

* * *

"The Stallion Who Mounts the World! The Stallion Who Mounts the World!"

Daenerys stood triumphant, her face covered in blood, as her beloved Drogo lifted her onto his shoulders and carried her around the wildly cheering crowd.

At the edge of the crowds, the nude form of Eelesia stood still, with only an expression of sadness on her face. Noticing this, Ser Jorah sidled over to her.

"You are not happy for your Khaleesi?" he asked softly.

"Daenerys is not my queen," Eelesia responded. "But I do like her. She is both clever and kind, and in her own way she is very strong. It is my hope that her heart will never grow cold, but if it does not, I think she will look back on this moment in years to come, and regret it."

"I see," Ser Jorah murmured.

"You love her," Eelesia said.

Ser Jorah's head snapped around and he looked at her sharply. "I serve the rightful queen."

"You do," Eelesia agreed. "But you would serve her regardless of her rightfulness. Regardless of her _righteousness_."

"I would," Ser Jorah stated with conviction.

Eelesia touched his arm and gave him an understanding smile. "I hope you live without regrets."

Eelesia left the knight and the crowd, and went back to the tent next to the Khal's. Doreah was there, bathing herself with a sponge. She looked over her shoulder and smiled when she saw Eelesia.

"How goes the celebration?" the Lysene woman asked.

Eelesia knelt behind the other woman, snaking her arms around her and pressing her breasts into Doreah's bare back. "They cheer the promise of slaughter for slaughter's sake."

Kissing the other woman's neck, Eelesia took the sponge and pulled back enough to continue Doreah's bathing. Eventually, she set the sponge aside and took Doreah into her arms with a searing kiss, as she slid a hand down between Doreah's legs.

* * *

Drogo lay on his furs, breathing shallowly, his eyes open but unseeing. Daenerys knelt with a hand on his chest, eyes glistening. Irri knelt beside her with a comforting hand on her shoulder, while Eelesia and Doreah looked on.

"I'm sorry, Daeney," Eelesia murmured. "I should have insisted on treating him. I should never have let that hedge witch near him."

Daenerys took a steadying breath. "No. It was my decision. I am the one who put my beloved's fate in that witch's hands, merely because she claimed surer results. You are only guilty of being honest."

"What will we do, Khaleesi?" Irri asked.

Daenerys didn't answer.

* * *

**Insert montage of crossover awesome here.**

* * *

Eelesia held tight to Daenerys' waist as they rode into the sky on the back of her lone surviving dragon. The dragon's wings beat hard against the turbulence of the upper sky. Daenerys' skillfully kept Rhaegal on course even as gravity and space warped around them, playing havoc with their sense of balance.

Ahead of them, the faux sun at the center of the great shell world burned bright. This close to it, it was searing even in the dead of winter. Daenerys' clothes began to smolder and char, but they pressed on.

The shining faux sun resolved in detail, revealing rotating rings of light swinging around a central point. Eelesia grinned, seeing further confirmation of her guess.

Daenerys' clothes burst into flame in earnest, flaking off of her and leaving a trail of smoke and ash behind them. No amount of heat bothered Daenerys, but Eelesia was starting to get uncomfortably warm, and she was glad they'd figured out that escape was only possible during the winter anyway.

The seasons of the shell world, it turned out, were caused by the portal at the center of the sky switching directions. Summer came with the energy of an incoming portal, and winter came with the void of an outgoing portal.

With a last heave of his wings, Rhaegal carried Daenerys and Eelesia between the orbiting rings of searing light. Space around them peeled apart like a blooming flower, and quite suddenly, they were very much elsewhere.

* * *

(**Game of Thrones** belongs to George RR Martin and HBO. I am not affiliated with either.)

(AN: Game of Thrones is an awesome show, but I will never forgive HBO for completely ruining the scene of Drogo and Daenerys' first time, which was far better handled in the book. Or for _lobotomizing_ Shae the way they did.)


	9. The Dark Age

**The Dark Age**

Lightning struck from thick clouds of sulfuric acid, lashing out towards the small black object that was now in freefall through an atmosphere of carbon dioxide ninety-two times denser than than the air at the surface of the Earth. It grew slowly as it fell, pulling usable molecules from the thick scorching air.

At last, it reached the rocky desert surface, impacting like a meteor and blasting rock and red-hot sand into the oppressive yellow sky.

As the ejecta settled, an inky blackness crept over the rim of the crater and began spreading out through the desert, growing outwards in all directions with tendrils of discoloration. Slowly, the terrain under the growing black smoothed and flattened out, creating an ever-expanding circular plane.

After the blackness had grown for a while, delving deep into the ground, on the surface at the center of the growing material, the blackness shimmered as it gave way to a softer white material which grew outwards, following in the wake of the consuming inky darkness.

* * *

With the _Eliezera_ once more whole, Willow once more parked it at the moon's secondary Lagrangian point. Out of the earth's sight, a small low-power matter stream struck the surface of the moon, kicking up enough mineable material for the ship to replenish its lost material and hydrogen fuel, and reignite the fusion core. At the center of the two-hundred kilometer long starship, a miniature artificial sun blazed inside the magnetic containment of a tiny dyson sphere, thirty kilometers in diameter.

Meanwhile, negotiations with the SGC for the transporters fell through in the wake of Anubis' defeat, but as is often the case, there was a much simpler solution none of the three thought of until later. Willow looked over the profile of the _Prometheus_built up from sensor fog data, stripping all the recognizable systems out of the simulation, until just the naquadah tech was left. From there, she spent a day identifying the beaming system until she had a stored model of the whole mechanism.

It wasn't enough to synthesize one herself. There were internals the sensor fog couldn't reach, and naquadah itself seemed to be partially composed of exotic particles, in a configuration that was only stable because the magic system recognized it and forced it to remain stable, so she couldn't just synthesize the stuff. But it was enough to have the ship search for other beaming systems.

And she found one, on an abandoned goa'uld ship, cloaked in low orbit. She'd pulled the system out of the al'kesh and walled it up at one end of the _Eliezera_, connecting it to the ship. After some testing of the alien system, Buffy and Xander had beamed down to Sunnydale, while Willow shut herself away, determined to finish her work before allowing herself to spend precious time on anything else.

* * *

The flash of light faded and the world returned to Buffy as she materialized in her kitchen. Joyce Summers gasped in shock, dropping the mug she was holding, as her missing daughter appeared in a flash of brilliant white light, wearing a silky white tanktop and shorts.

Buffy snapped out her Utility Cloud and caught the falling mug before it could shatter. She lifted it back to her mom's hands, which gripped it in sheer reflex. For a long moment, Joyce just stared, gaping, before Buffy finally broke the silence.

"Do you remember what I told you, after the Hemery thing?" Buffy started. "You didn't believe me, then, but it was all true. There's more, though. more you don't know. More you're not gonna wanna believe. But I just... I don't want to lie to you anymore, Mom."

"Buffy... what...?"

Buffy smiled hopefully. "I'll show you, if you let me."

With a shaking hand, not taking her eyes of Buffy, Joyce set her mug down and lunged forward, wrapping Buffy up in a tight hug. "Oh thank god, Buffy, do you have any idea how worried I was? Where on earth have you been?"

"I'll show you, if you let me," Buffy repeated. "Or are you going to try and pretend you didn't just see me appear out of thin air in a flash of light?"

Joyce pulled back and held Buffy by the shoulders as she shook her head. "I don't know what I saw, but I am disappointed in you Buffy. I don't know what possessed you to run off like that - "

"Let me show you," Buffy repeated for the third time, interrupting her mom's scolding.

Joyce frowned at her before looking upwards and sighing. "Alright. Fine. Go on. I'll hear you out. But this better be good."

Making a face, Buffy gently pulled her mom out the kitchen door and into the backyard, where a greenish beachball sized sphere was resting on the grass. At Buffy's mental poke, it quickly ballooned up to its normal five meter size.

Joyce gasped. "Buffy, what... what is that?"

"It's a disposable spaceship," Buffy told her wryly. "Come on already, Mom. You want to know where I've been, don't ya?"

Joyce gave her daughter a warning look. "Buffy, what is this?"

Buffy sighed and grunted in exasperation. With a mental command, the shuttle rolled forward and sucked Buffy and a startled Joyce inside. While her mom was recovering her wits, Buffy closed her eyes and focused on the interface Willow had built for the transporters. A moment later the shuttle and its contents vanished in a flash of light, and remateralized in lunar orbit.

* * *

It took a while to sink in, but Joyce's surprise could only last so long. She was in space. This was just... _so cool_. Her arms were aching a bit from holding on to Buffy to keep herself steady in the weightless bubble, but she didn't care.

"How?" Joyce finally asked.

"Do you remember my Halloween costume?" Buffy asked.

Joyce dragged her gaze from the lunar landscape. "I still think it was too revealing, by the way."

Buffy had to laugh. "You have no idea."

Joyce decided to revisit that ominous comment later. "What does that have to do with... all this?"

"Well, that night, some butthead with a lot of magical power and a sick sense of humor invoked a power of chaos..." Buffy went on before her mom could speak. "The point is, every costume this guy sold turned the person wearing it into... it. The costume. For about five hours, I _was_ Lyn Rea-Val, like for real."

Joyce shook her head. "Buffy, I don't..."

"This is complicated," Buffy whined. "But, the point is the costumes became real for a few hours. As far as we can tell, most everybody changed back into themselves at the end of the night, and all the costume stuff turned back into fake costume stuff, but me, Willow, and Xander didn't change back, even when we remembered who we were. I guess you could say that now I'm Buffy in Lyn's body, but that's not quite..." Buffy sighed. "Willow is so much better at the 'splainy stuff."

"You... still look like you," Joyce pointed out slowly. "And I still don't see what this has to do with... _this_!" She gestured outward.

"Do I still look like me?" Buffy asked neutrally.

Joyce blinked and studied her closely for a few moments, and her eyes widened. "Your skin... your eyes have too much color, your hair too, and... your chest is bigger!" Joyce shook her head. "But how can..."

"Lyn isn't human," Buffy said. "Her kind call themselves Fae, and Fae can... well it's not really shapeshifting, but we can sort of slowly morph the details of our appearance, so I can look like me, or a tiny bit improved me." Buffy smiled hopefully. "The good news is it makes being the Slayer way less dangerous! Fae are made of majorly tough stuff, like cartoonishly hard to hurt. You could throw me into the grand canyon and drop an anvil on my head and I wouldn't even have a bruise. And we never get tired, or sick, or old, or other bad stuff like that."

Joyce was quiet for a long moment, but this time it was thoughtful. "This is all real, isn't it. Willow and Xander? The same thing happened to them? They're... Fae?" Joyce paused and shook her head. "Okay, but _where_ did you get a spaceship?"

Buffy had to laugh. "Lyn lives on a starship the size of a city, and they're so high tech that, if they want, spaceships like this one can literally grow on trees. Not that this one did, it grew on a wall. In ours. Our copy of the starship, the one that got made by the magic that changed us into our costumes."

Joyce looked at her with some alarm. "You have a starship? The size of a city?"

"Yeah, but really only Willow can fly the thing," Buffy admitted. "We've all got the memories, which helps, but Willow's the only one with a head for it. Look."

Joyce looked where Buffy was pointing, just as the pearlescent ovoid rose from behind the lunar horizon. It looked small from the moon's surface, until she realized that the lunar landscape was zipping by in a hypersonic blur and the distant starship wasn't getting noticeably bigger. Joyce gasped.

"I wanted you to see it, so you'd know how big a deal this is," Buffy said. "You wanted to know where I've been the past few days, well, that's where. Willow's there right now, and I wanted to show you around, but Willow told me you'd get radiation poisoning if we stayed inside for even an hour. It's not safe for humans who plan on staying human."

Joyce's head whipped around. "Staying human?"

Buffy nodded seriously. "The Fae were created, with technology and stuff. It takes on average seventeen days to upgrade a human, but the procedure is cheap and automatic and completely reliable. That's the other reason I wanted to show you this."

* * *

A flash of light deposited Buffy, Joyce and the shuttle back on the grass of their yard. Buffy collapsed the shuttle and tucked it out of sight, then followed Joyce inside.

"I... don't know what to think of even half of this," Joyce admitted. "Magic? Spaceships? You being a superhero? Aliens? Hellmouths? I don't even..."

"I know. It's scary stuff," Buffy agreed. "That's why I want you to be Fae. Mom, you're just not safe in this world as a human, and I couldn't stand it if I lost you. Please. It's only three weeks, at most."

"Buffy, you're talking about giving up my humanity," Joyce exclaimed.

"I know, Mom. I thought the same thing, at first," Buffy confessed. "But it won't be like what happened to me. You won't have memories of half a century of someone else's life dumped into you head. Yes, you won't be human anymore, but you won't actually be giving anything up! Not even your pierced ears, 'cause there's a morph setting for that."

Joyce shook her head. "Even if that's true, you're still asking me to live a lie. What about my job? My friends?"

"Mom, look at me," Buffy said. "I've been Fae since Halloween. Is there anything about me that gives it away? I promise, if you just want to go about your life like normal, you won't even notice anything different, except, you know, the parts about not getting tired and never having to go to the bathroom at an inconvenient time, if you go at all."

"If it's so great, why should I be the only one you do this for?" Joyce asked. "Shouldn't you go public with this so everyone can benefit?"

Buffy nodded. "Yes."

Joyce blinked.

"Willow's up on the ship working on it right now," Buffy told her. "She's already got a plan, but I'm sure she'll listen if you have a better one. If you take the upgrade, it'll be safe for you to go up and talk to her about it. Please, Mom. Let me make you safe."

Joyce gestured helplessly with her hands. "How would this work, exactly? If I said to go ahead?"

A subtle tension eased from Buffy's body. She reached into her mouth like she was going after a wad of gum, and pulled out a little red blob the size of her thumb. She held it out on her hand, and the way her stance shifted made it obvious that it was far heavier than its size would indicate.

"Willow made this for me," Buffy said. "It's basically a grow-anywhere-on-earth seed for the... thing that does the upgrade. I figure we put it in the basement where there's room and it won't get in the way."

Joyce regarded the little red lump with a mix of wariness and curiosity. "And it's safe?"

"It'd kinda defeat the purpose if it wasn't," Buffy said. "In the world Lyn came from it worked perfectly billions of times."

"I did just get back from a buying trip," Joyce mused slowly. "I suppose the gallery could get by for a while if I were to... take a bit of a vacation."

Buffy smiled brightly and hugged her mom, careful not to touch her with the heavy seed.

"I'm gonna go plant this," Buffy said, stepping back, "and then I should really report in to Giles. I didn't have a chance to tell him anything before the, you know, whole alien invasion thing... I wonder how many times I can get him to say 'dear lord!'"

Leaving her mom shaking her head, Buffy went down to the basement and picked out a nice empty section of floor out of sight of the staircase. She dropped the seed, which hit the cement with a solid smack. It started growing as soon as it made firm contact with something that wasn't Fae, slowly consuming the cement as it rooted itself.

* * *

Joyce was sitting on the sofa, lost in thought, when the doorbell rang.

Buffy came bouncing up from the basement and pulled the front door open without a moment's pause. Joyce smiled as Xander was revealed on their doorstep, wearing cargo pants and a loose hawaiian shirt, but she stared in surprise when Buffy sprang into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist as they shared a lingering kiss.

As Xander carried Buffy inside, the door swung shut seemingly on its own, but Joyce ignored that to focus on the more comprehensible part of what she was seeing.

"When did you two start dating?" Joyce inquired as Xander let Buffy down, sounding approving and a little smug.

Buffy almost hated to take the wind out of her sails. "Oh. We're not dating. Just being friendly."

"Hey, Mrs. S," Xander greeted, looking sheepish but not overtly embarrassed or guilty.

Joyce gave her daughter a measured look. "Not _too_ friendly, I hope."

Buffy put on her best innocent grin. "No such thing, Mom."

Joyce didn't sputter. She very calmly and deliberately didn't sputter. "You're teasing me."

Buffy changed the subject as she grabbed a pair of sandals and put them on. "Well anyway, I really need to fill Giles in. Don't go into the basement until I get back, okay?"

"Okay, Buffy," Joyce said, standing up and giving her a stern look. "You'll call first, if something comes up, and let me know where you are, won't you?"

Buffy nodded. "I promise."

* * *

Xander fidgeted with his belt buckle as they strolled along the way to Giles' apartment. "I forgot how awkward this was."

"Huh?" Buffy inquired.

"Squishing my man-bits with my belt so the bulge doesn't show," Xander explained.

Buffy blinked. "Oh, uh, right. I guess it is a little harder for you."

Xander sniggered.

"I didn't mean like that!" Buffy laughed.

"I know. I get how it's an aesthetic advantage and an equalizer when everybody's nude, which is cool," Xander said. "It's just uncomfortable when we have to pass for human."

"Well, maybe once my mom gets the upgrade, I can ease her into the idea that clothes are totally optional for us," Buffy confided. "So hopefully, that'll be one more place you won't have to."

"You think you can change her mind that fast?" Xander wondered.

Buffy made a face. "I don't think it'll be that easy. I think once she gets over getting to go into space, I'm still gonna be in for a ranty lecture for running off, even though I explained that. Or would that be a lecture-y rant?"

Xander shrugged.

* * *

Giles had gone beyond polishing his glasses and was pouring himself a drink by the time Buffy and Xander had finished recounting everything from saving Ford, to Anubis' invasion with a fleet of motherships, to glassing Antarctica.

"I had wondered," Giles said as he drained his glass. "The news is claiming it was an asteroid impact. I take it Willow is still up in your spaceship - and sod if that isn't something I ever thought I'd say - ah, effecting repairs?"

Buffy shook her head. "The ship finished healing itself in just a few hours. Willow's working on something else."

Giles went over and put his empty glass in the sink. "Dare I ask?"

"Giles," Buffy began. "We can make other people into Fae, and it's really easy too. We can save a lot of people that way. Way more than I could even if I slayed for a hundred years. This is freakin' panacea, Giles, and we've been handed it on a silver platter. We _can't_ keep it to ourselves."

"It was a power of chaos that brought this into being, Buffy," Giles pointed out. "I don't think it wise to trust it. Such magics always have a price, and if it is a legitimate cure-all, the price could be enormous."

"I think you're wrong there, G-man," Xander said. "The upgrade isn't magical, and the more I think about it, the more I'm sure the chaos spell didn't bring us into being, either."

Giles sighed. "Xander, I hardly think you're qualified to - "

"I wasn't," Xander interrupted, "but Zach Reon was. He studied metaphysics as a hobby, and his memories are telling me that the magics couldn't have... _invented_the Fae. There's just too much information the magics, or Janus himself for that matter, couldn't have gotten from this universe. I looked it up on Willow's computer, and our costumes were _loosely_ based on a single novella, and that book doesn't mention the people we turned into or the _Eliezera_, or any technical details about our molecular technology."

"He's right, Giles," Buffy said. "This isn't a bargain with a higher power. This is... medicine. The _end_ of medicine - hey double meaning. Look, do you really think I'd be trying to talk my mom into the upgrade if I didn't _know_ it was perfectly safe?"

"For the sake of argument, say you're right," Giles said. "How do you plan on offering this to the world at large?"

Buffy and Xander shared a glance. Buffy looked at him expectantly, and Xander shrugged concedingly.

"Well, we tried to think of a way," Xander said, "and tried some more, but we couldn't come up with anything that would work. But, the goal is to save lives, not to Faeify the Earth, so I had an idea. We're terraforming Venus, and Willow's working on a scanning program to detect when someone dies. Anyone, anywhere, as soon as they die, Willow's program automatically beams their body up, and revives them with the upgrade. On Venus."

Giles was busy polishing his glasses again with a scowl. He put them back on and said, "That is what you intend to do? Did you even bother to consider what kind of chaos that could cause?"

Buffy and Xander both nodded seriously, and Buffy said, "Any of our other options would be worse. This way, everybody who can be saved, is, and life on Earth is disrupted as little as possible."

"It is an admirable cause, Buffy, but that does not mean you should resort to _mass kidnapping_!" Giles exclaimed.

"If you have a better plan, please," Buffy retorted defensively.

"Technically, its not kidnapping if they're legally dead when we rescue the bodies," Xander added.

"Be that as it may," Giles said, "you're talking about permanently changing people into something else and taking them from their homes, without their consent or even an explanation."

"It's better to have a hundred people pissed off about that, than it is for just one person to die who didn't want to," Buffy said.

Giles looked at her like she was crazy.

"What?" Buffy snapped. "You're always saying I have a destiny, that my purpose is to protect people. This is orders of magnitude bigger than the Slayer! Hundreds of thousands of people die every day, and we have a way to save pretty much all of them."

Giles blinked in confusion for a moment, before his mouth dropped open and he stared askance at Buffy as he finally realized just what she was really talking about. "It is your destiny to protect humans from _supernatural_ threats! It is not your place to upset the _entire mortal coil_!"

"Wow, G-man, I don't think I've ever heard you hit that pitch before," Xander contributed.

"Screw my _place_, Giles," Buffy retorted. "Letting people die needlessly is never the right thing to do."

Giles sat down heavily. "I am appalled that you three would be arrogant enough to, to play god like this. I cannot condone it."

Buffy sighed. "Giles, seriously, if you can think of a better way, that doesn't kill anybody who wanted to live, _and_ gets us informed consent, I'm all for it. But, with what we've got to work with, Willow says it's pretty much one or the other, and we've made our choice."

Giles went to pour himself another drink, and there was a long awkward silence.

"The Council called back," he finally said. "They confirmed that the Cha - the Stargate went missing from its burial site in Egypt at some point in the nineteen-twenties."

"They already knew?" Xander asked.

"Quite," Giles said. "Apparently the records show that they searched for it at the time, but couldn't locate it. They were less than pleased that all I had was your guess about the initials of an organization they'd never heard of."

"Stargate Command."

"Right, well, I ought to report that the Stargate has indeed been found," Giles said. "I will see you at school, Buffy."

Recognizing the dismissal with a pout, Buffy followed Xander out the front door. She paused on the threshold and said, "If you want the upgrade for yourself, just say the word. I don't want you dying on me, Giles."

* * *

Daniel Jackson was late to the briefing, but when he finally showed up, he looked very excited. He put down a small but very old book on the table and didn't bother with sitting down.

"Sam! You were right!" Daniel announced, pacing back and forth and waving his arms as he spoke. "I started with some of the more obscure parts of my collection, works dealing with the occult and the like. I almost immediately started finding parallels to the teachings of Kheb, so I tried cross-referencing the texts and, after several hours of work, I found this!"

Daniel opened the book to a marked page and turned it around, pushing it towards the others. Carter examined it suspiciously while Jack raised an eyebrow.

"A magic spell, Daniel?" Jack asked, giving him a look.

"An invocation to Oma Desala, Jack," Daniel told him excitedly. "I spoke to her just ten minutes ago."

"What did she say?" Doctor Weir asked.

Daniel paused. "Well, mostly just that she was bending the rules by talking to me, and I shouldn't expect to see her in person again if I repeated the ritual."

"A bit redundant," Jack opined.

"But don't you see?" Daniel prompted. "What if other occult rituals are also invocations of Ascended Beings?" He pointed at the open book. "The one I performed is described in the book as a healing spell. I gave my self paper cuts to test it, and Oma healed me a dozen times before she ever showed herself. What if the entire occult tradition is, is some kind of etiquette for directly trading the 'worship energy' whatever that actually is, in exchange for intervention?"

"That's amazing, and more than a little disturbing in its implications," Carter admitted, "but what exactly are you saying I'm right about?"

"This," Daniel said triumphantly, before glaring hard at Carter's coffee mug.

For a moment, nothing happened, but then jaws dropped around the table as the mug slowly rose off the laminated wood. It floated steadily for a moment, before starting to wobble and slip sideways as it flipped over and dumped Carter's dregs out as it clattered back to the table.

"Crap. Sorry, Sam," Daniel said.

Jack recovered first. "Wait. I know this one. Isn't this just like the thing with those monks on Kheb? That was Oma too, wasn't it? She made you think you were moving stuff with your mind, lighting candles and whatnot, but it was all a trick."

"I don't think so, Jack," Daniel said. "It was borrowed power, yes, but while I held it, it was me doing those things. And I don't think it's borrowed power this time. It feels different. Sam's theory about the Ancient's psionic powers being something we can learn to do, even if it ends up being more complicated than just mental training, this proves the idea is sound."

Samantha Carter, meanwhile, was feeling somewhat faint as she stared off at nothing. She'd suspected, ever since she let herself think about it seriously - ascension really was _egregiously_ magical, and while she could think of technological explanations for little things like seemingly being conscious while demateralized in transit between stargates, the magical explanation actually had a lower complexity penalty, given the available evidence - but she wasn't really completely ready for her suspicions to be right. It meant she wasn't as good a scientist as she thought she was, always just assuming something was physics without even bothering to check.

"I'm afraid we'll have to revisit Daniel's discovery at another time," Doctor Weir said, getting the meeting back on track. "The IOA and the DOD are concerned about the Fae. Specifically, we've been ordered to treat Fae presence on American soil with the attention due a foothold situation."

Jack shot Daniel one last look before shaking his head and turning his attention to Weir. "Is this even our jurisdiction? The Fae didn't come through the Stargate, and they didn't come from anywhere we've been through the Stargate. They didn't even know about it until we showed them. Not that I think it'd be anything like a good idea to have some other agency harassing our incredibly powerful modesty-challenged friends."

"Unfortunately, that's just the problem," Doctor Weir explained. "The Fae freely admitted that there are civilians in the know about them. Now that the Fae are aware of the SGC, the Pentagon is worried they might be divulging classified information to their native allies."

"So they don't really think they're a threat," Daniel guessed. "The foothold protocols are just an excuse."

Doctor Weir nodded. "That was my own assessment of the situation. Unfortunately, the Fae did technically qualify for foothold status when these came to light." She opened a folder and spread several printouts onto the table. "Buffy Summers. Willow Rosenberg. Alexander Harris. Our Fae friends have established aliases, complete with a history and associated records. Homeland Security is very worried by how thoroughly the Fae were able to create identities for themselves."

"So, what would our objective here be?" Carter asked.

"Primarily, to get non-disclosure agreements signed by the three Fae and any civilians who know about them," Doctor Weir said. "However, they also want SG-1 to investigate the Fae's activities, to confirm that their presence is indeed innocuous."

"Well then, I guess it's once more up to us to go poking our noses into things that might get them _nuked from orbit_ off our faces," Jack deadpanned. "I like my nose."

Carter hid a smile. "Where are we going, exactly?"

"The town is called Sunnydale," Doctor Weir told them, and then frowned.

"Elizabeth?" Daniel prompted.

Doctor Weir shook her head. "The name is familiar somehow, though I can't seem to remember where I heard it before. It's been bugging me." She brushed it off. "You leave on monday, SG-1. A cover story has been arranged. It seems the local high school is having a Career Week. You'll be posing as Air Force recruiters..."

* * *

"Mom! I'm back!" Buffy called as she shut the door and kicked her sandals off.

After a moment, Buffy heard her mom's voice in the other room and then the beep of the phone hanging up. Joyce emerged from the dining room, her face a conflicted mix of trepidation, curiosity, suspicion, and resolve.

"How was your, ah, talk with Mr. Giles?" Joyce asked awkwardly.

"He freaked a little," Buffy admitted. "I think he's gonna be busy talking to his bosses back in the land of tweed for a while."

Joyce folded her arms. "I don't like that you've had this whole other life I never knew about, Buffy."

"I know, Mom," Buffy said. "I didn't like it either. That's why I'm letting you in on it all now. I would have told you sooner, but, well, you remember the first time I tried to tell you I was the Slayer."

Joyce winced. "That was different, Buffy. You were different."

"Yeah, 'cause I needed you, and you didn't even try to hear me out," Buffy groused, then sighed. "Mom, that sucked, but I'm over it. Please, just trust me this time."

After a long moment, Joyce came over and gave Buffy a hug. "Alright. I will."

Buffy smiled. "Good. That's good. Come on, follow me."

Leading her down into the basement, Buffy stood aside as Joyce laid eyes on the birthing pod and gasped. Joyce stared wide-eyed at the sight, taking a slow step closer.

"Oh, Buffy, it's beautiful," Joyce remarked.

Buffy shrugged. "Kinda, I guess. So, are you ready? The sooner you do it, the sooner you can get back to your routine."

"I suppose I am as much as I'll ever be," Joyce said. "Oh wait, no, I need to hide the car, first."

"Oh, right, yeah," Buffy agreed. "Hey, why don't we clean up the garage tonight? We can do it like a total mother-daughter bonding thing. I'll do the heavy lifting. How 'bout it?"

Joyce turned to her with a wry smile. "My daughter, offering to clean the garage. Surely, this is a sign of the end times."

Buffy laughed. "No, that was yesterday, and I kicked it's ass, then Willow nuked it from orbit."

* * *

Xander strolled out of the pawn shop several thousand dollars richer, having sold off a few rare gemstones he'd synthesized before beaming down. He jogged to the supermarket. It was time to do something he'd always wanted to do.

The lady at the checkout gave him funny looks when he pushed up a cart loaded to the brim with nothing but boxes of twinkies. He'd had to talk a stockguy into letting him into the back.

Xander just grinned at her.

* * *

"What's it like?" Joyce asked as she stacked a few boxes in the corner.

Buffy picked up an old table and put it against the wall. "Being Fae?"

Joyce nodded.

"It's like... Imagine the best you've ever felt. Totally rested. Completely clear-headed. No aches or pains," Buffy told her. "Imagine feeling like that all the time, no matter what you do. It's like that. And there are extra benefits on top of that."

"Like?" Joyce inquired.

"Besides being harder to scratch than a diamond?" Buffy asked impishly.

Joyce gave her daughter a patient smile.

"Well, I already told you about one," Buffy said. "You have total control over how you look, and it's totally zero maintenance. Makes getting ready for your day a lot easier, and you'll never need nailclippers or a haircut either."

Joyce was thoughtfully quiet for a while. "Back when you... beamed down. You made my coffee mug levitate. What was that?"

"It's called the Utility Cloud," Buffy explained. "It's these little bits of... something. Willow could tell you. Anyway it's these little bits that work with the magnet-type stuff your bones do to make something called prehensile magnetic fields. And the little bits can do all kinds of useful stuff, if you know how. It's like the ultimate swiss army knife."

"It's almost like magic," Joyce commented.

"But not really," Buffy said. "If I could pick things up with magic, I wouldn't need to balance the weight. If I hold something heavy enough out in front of me with my Utility Cloud, I'll topple over."

Joyce chuckled. "I see."

* * *

Philip Henry was desperate. It was closing in on him, and his heart thundered in primal fear. He dashed around a corner and almost shrieked when he nearly collided with a custodian who was busy dumping out trashcans into a dumpster.

"Can I help you?" the custodian asked.

"Rupert Giles," Philip gasped. "I need to see him."

"Mr. Giles? He's our librarian," the man revealed. "Next building over, first door on your left."

Rushing off in the indicated direction, Philip barely registered the sarcastic, "You're welcome," from behind him.

Philip spotted the door marked _Library_ with a surge of relief, but before he could reach it, a noise made him spin around in fright. Backing slowly towards the building, Philip strained his eyes, searching for his pursuer in the darkness.

He could hear it, coming closer, and his shaking hand scrabbled behind him for the door handle. There. Glowing eyes, peering menacingly out of something human-shaped.

"Oh gods..."

His foot caught on the concrete step and he almost tripped. The thing moved closer during his distraction, but as it shuffled into the light, giving him a pleasant smile full of black, rotted teeth in a decaying bluish face, Philip's knees went weak in recognition.

"Deirdre..."

She reached for him, and he flinched back, whirling to yank open the door, but a rotting hand slammed into the cheerfully-painted metal.

"No!" Philip cried. "Help me!"

* * *

In the library, Xander stuffed yet another twinkie into his mouth. The big box he'd brought with him was on the table, and the chair next to him held a plastic shopping back full of empty wrappers. Giles was pouring over several books, looking for further references to the Goa'uld and giving Xander occasional queasy looks.

"Must you gorge yourself on those abominations in here?" Giles asked tiredly.

"They're not abominations! They're good food!" Xander insisted.

"Food has actual ingredients. Those things aren't food," Giles argued inanely.

"I can finally eat my twinkies by the box-full without making myself sick," Xander countered.

"Where do you put it all?" Giles asked semi-rhetorically.

"It's just atoms," Xander said. "Anything that puts me over-mass just gets shed in whatever way is convenient. Carbon dioxide. Water vapor. Whatever."

"Delightful," Giles muttered sourly.

Xander stuffed another wrapper into the plastic bag and reached for the box, but he froze in place a moment later. "You hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"..omebody! Please!"

Xander swore and leaped out of his seat. He reached out a hand and one of Giles' swords hurtled across the room, smacking hard into Xander's palm blade-first. Xander flipped the handle into his hand and dashed for the library's side door.

Xander slammed the door open with his shoulder, sending two people who were just on the other side sprawling to the ground. No, not two people. One middle-aged guy and one...

"Holy crap zombie!" Xander exclaimed.

With a snarl, the zombie lunged for the guy, who was crawling away, but Xander swung hard with the sword, lopping the zombie's arm off. Pushing a current through the steel blade, Xander stabbed through the zombie's chest, and it fell back, twitching.

"Good lord, Phillip? Is that you?" Giles said, stepping out behind Xander and helping the other guy up.

"Rupert, thank god," the guy, Phillip, gasped. "It's back."

"What's back?" Xander asked as he aimed to chop the zombie's head off.

"No!" Phillip yelped. "Don't! If you destroy her it'll just leap to a new host!"

As Xander lowered the sword, Giles finally got a good look at the zombie. Possessed zombie? Whatever it was.

"Deirdre," Giles breathed in horror.

"Giles, what's going on?" Xander questioned.

"Quickly, help me get her into the weapons cage," Giles said.

Still reeling from the electrocution, Giles and Xander managed to wrestle the zombie across the library without getting bitten or anything. Once she was locked up, zombie Deirdre seemed to shake it off, and gave them a very creepy smile. Giles waved them back into his office.

"G-man, seriously, what's going on?" Xander asked again.

"You should go home, Xander," Giles said evenly. "This is a personal matter. You don't need to be involved."

"Really? 'Cause this looks more like another exciting episode of Adventures in Hellmouth Central," Xander retorted.

"Xander," Giles nearly growled.

"It's called Eyghon," Philip revealed, wilting when Giles glared at him. "What? The kid just saved my life. Ah, Philip Henry, good to meet you, young man."

"Xander Harris." Xander shook his hand. "So... Eyghon?"

With a sigh, Giles explained, "It is a demonic spirit that I, Philip, and a few other impetuous boys... dealed with, during our youth."

Xander stared. "Dealt with? Or made a deal with?"

"Ah, that would be the second one," Giles admitted.

Phillip rolled up his sleeve, revealing a three-pronged tattoo. "It marked us, and now, finally, it has returned to claim us."

_Buffy, are you busy?_ Xander sent.

_Kind of,_ Buffy replied. _I'm hanging with my mom, and I've just about got her convinced to take the upgrade. Why?_

_Don't worry about it. I'll tell you about it later. Or Giles will,_ Xander sent.

_Problem?_ Buffy asked.

_Small one, maybe,_ Xander admitted. _I can handle it._

_Okay. I'll be there in a flash if you need me,_ Buffy affirmed.

Xander looked between Philip Henry and Giles. "So how do we kill it?"

"I'm... I'm not sure we can," Philip confessed. "It doesn't have a physical form we can hurt."

Xander thought for a moment. "How well can it get around without a host body?"

"It was little more than an amorphous blue mist when it moved between hosts," Giles said. "But if you're thinking of trapping it, there's nothing to stop it from passing through solid walls."

"Actually, I was thinking of stranding it somewhere it'll never find another host." Xander looked a Giles. "You think it could survive on the surface of the sun?"

Philip choked. "The surface of the sun? How would you even..."

Giles, meanwhile, sat down, stunned. "It couldn't actually be that easy, could it?"

"Why don't we find out," Xander said, striding back into the library proper.

The zombie gave him that creepy grin again, so Xander electrocuted her. While she was reeling, he opened the cage and dragged her across the library and out the side door. Giles and Phillip followed, anxious and confused respectively.

With a flash of light, the transparent sphere of a shuttle appeared just outside the door, and Xander tossed the zombie inside.

Phillip stared open-mouthed. "Wha... what on earth is that?"

Xander activated the shuttle's autonav, and set the destination. Inside, the zombie was looking around in confusion and clawing at the inner membrane. With a gust of air, the shuttle lifted up and accelerated into the night sky.

Xander made a show of dusting his hands off. "Done and done."

"I need another drink," Giles sighed, turning to Philip. "Join me at the pub?"

* * *

Joyce pulled her car into the garage, and then followed Buffy into the house and down to the basement. The birthing pod opened like a flower, and Joyce shot Buffy a nervous look.

"Is there anything I need to do?" Joyce asked.

Buffy shook her head. "Nope, but you should strip first. Anything you're wearing is gonna dissolve."

"Dissolve?" Joyce repeated.

"Well, yeah, the thing's changing your whole body at the molecular level," Buffy said. "Clothes really aren't part of the process."

"Alright," Joyce said, undressing and handing her clothes to Buffy, who folded them and set them aside.

Once she was down to her skin, Joyce stepped gingerly onto the reddish fleshy surface. "Oh, it's warm."

Feeling bolder, Joyce waded into the wafting forest of waist-high pale pink tendrils. With a liquid sound, a bubble of fluid swelled up under her feet. It felt like sinking into a hot bath. No, better than that. It felt like sinking into a bath of hot oil massage. That didn't even make sense, but that's what it felt like.

The petals of the pod began to close, curling up around the fluid, but Joyce was already floating on a cloud of relaxed contentment. The fluid rose over her head, and unconsciousness claimed her.

* * *

(AN: Has anyone else noticed that Anubis and Eyghon are pretty much the same kind of entity? And people say Stargate and Buffy don't share a universe. :P )


	10. What's My Line

**What's My Line**

The woman who had taken to calling herself Jenny Calendar hurried across the small courtyard of Rupert Giles' apartment complex. She hesitated on his doorstep, eager to see him, but dreading the news she had to tell him and couldn't put off any longer.

Jenny ducked her head and closed her eyes, breathing out slowly to center herself. Swallowing the lump that had risen in her throat, she knocked.

Rupert opened the door and smiled when he saw her, greeting her, "Jenny."

Jenny took a measured step over the threshold and replied with a slow, deliberate kiss. "Good evening, Rupert."

He took her coat, revealing the clingy black dress she'd worn for the occasion. She put a little sway in her hips as she went passed him to the base of the stairs, watching him watch her with a smirk.

Once he'd shut the door and come back into arm's reach, Jenny ran her hands up his chest and started undoing the buttons of his shirt, exchanging inane pleasantries that weren't really important enough to pay attention to.

Somehow, they made it up to Rupert's bedroom by the time he was down to just his pants. Jenny slipped her shoes off and pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders, letting it fall into a little puddle of black fabric around her feet. She wasn't wearing anything under it, and smirked at the way Rupert's breath caught.

Jenny crawled onto the bed and started playing with herself while Rupert finished undressing. He was hard and ready by the time he joined her, kneeling between her legs and running his lips over her breasts.

Rolling them over, Jenny straddled his waist as she reached over and grabbed a condom out of the nightstand. She tore it open without ceremony and reached behind her where Rupert's manhood laid against her buttcheek.

Rising on her knees, she positioned him and sank down, sheathing him in her body with a sigh of pleasure. Jenny's hips undulated, rolling forwards and back on him as she leaned down and kissed him like it was her last chance to do it.

Ruperts hands roamed over her skin, caressing her just right. He played her body like a guitar, coaxing from her flesh a slowly building crescendo of orgasmic harmony. Notes, a melody of touches, flowing through her, raising her up and up and...

"Ahhhhhh!" Jenny cried as her sweltering core spasmed around her lover's hardness and she fell against him, trembling in ecstasy.

Once her orgasm passed, Rupert rolled them over and spread her legs wide, sliding his arms under her shoulders as his thrusts slowly built back up to a firm rolling pounding. Jenny moaned loudly, throwing her arms around his neck as they kissed deeply, their tongues questing for a saliva-soaked embrace.

Quite a while later, cuddled together and basking in the afterglow, Rupert looked at her with some concern.

"Jenny? Is there something wrong?" he asked.

Sighing, Jenny was both glad and annoyed that Rupert was perceptive enough to notice that she was... well, saying goodbye.

"I'm leaving, Rupert," Jenny confessed, then quickly added, "town. I'm leaving Sunnydale."

"Why now?"

"I... have to," Jenny started.

"Jenny..."

She shut her eyes and swallowed hard. "My name isn't Jenny."

Rupert shifted and propped himself up to get a better look at her.

"My real name was... is... Janna Kalderash," Jenny told him. "I was sent here by my clan, to ensure the vengeance of our family is not broken, to make sure that through all his days, Angelus continues to suffer."

"The curse," Rupert put together, sitting up and sliding his legs off the bed. "Your ancestors were responsible for the curse?"

Jenny reached for his shoulder and flinched when he pulled away. "Yes. And now that Angel is dead, my family is calling for me to answer for my failure."

Rupert looked over his shoulder at her. "You lied to me, to us, about everything."

Jenny knelt beside him. "Not everything! Only what I had to, Rupert. These are old secrets, and they aren't mine to tell."

"Then why are you telling me now?" Rupert asked.

Jenny pressed herself to his back and rested her head on his shoulder. "Because you deserve to know why I'm leaving. Because I want you to know the truth, even if my family doesn't. Because I trust you. And because I might not be allowed to come back."

Rupert let his head fall back and stared heavenward with a sigh. "When are you departing?"

"Tomorrow," Jenny admitted softly.

Rupert didn't reply for a while, but he did caress her arms where they were wrapped around him. Finally, he said, "In that case, I suppose we ought to make the most of tonight."

Jenny let out a little relieved laugh, and surreptitiously brushed a tear away.

* * *

Buffy and Xander were at school, and the normalcy was kind of surreal after they crazy week they'd had. Amidst the bustling activity of displays and banners being set up for Career Week in the lounge, the two of them sat at an out of the way table with a pair of career aptitude tests and the obligatory number two pencils.

"So... shrubs. Do I like shrubs?" Buffy wondered.

"What kind of shrubs?" Xander asked.

"I don't think they care," Buffy said.

"Hm, am I a people person, or do I keep my own company?" Xander read. "Agh, who wrote this test?"

"Maybe we should just mark 'B' for everything and go hang with Giles," Buffy suggested.

"Speaking of Giles, you got him to talk yet?" Xander asked.

Buffy shook her head. "Every time I bring it up, he changes the subject and gets all Watcher-y with and extra side of British. I don't like it, Xander. I don't like it that Giles is against us on this."

"I'm not sure he is," Xander confided. "I mean, he's being all disapproving, but he's not trying to talk us out of it."

"I know. It's weird," Buffy agreed.

Coming in their direction with a test of her own, Cordelia read, "I aspire to help my fellow man." She marked her test. "Check. As long as they're not smelly, dirty, or something gross."

Xander slowly turned his head to stare at her. "Cordelia Chase, ladies and gentlemen, always ready to offer a helping hand to everyone who doesn't need one."

Cordelia smiled evilly. "Which, lucky me, excludes you."

Xander opened his mouth, and then just shut it and smiled mysteriously. Cordelia rolled her eyes and strode off.

With a grin, Xander remarked, "She still doesn't know. Nobody told her yet." He laughed.

"You know, she'd probably jump on the chance to be Fae," Buffy pointed out.

"Aw, do we have to?" Xander whined.

Buffy smacked his arm. "Xander!"

"Kidding! Kidding. Jeez," Xander groused good-naturedly.

"You know, its funny," Buffy mused after a while, prodding her own test with her pencil. "This sort of thing used to really bum me out, 'cause it was like, why bother. My fate was sealed the moment I was Called." She grinned. "But now that I've got a future to look forward to, everything's so different and none of this matters anymore. It's not like we even need jobs, now."

Xander nodded. "Why are we even taking this thing, again?"

"Because we don't want to abandon our lives here, and this is Snyder's hoop of the week," Buff reminded him needlessly.

"Right, well, it should at least be good for some entertainingness," Xander said optimistically.

* * *

"Read it again," Spike ordered.

Dalton leaned over the stolen book, flustered. "I'm not sure. It could be, uh... deprimere... ille... bubula... linter."

Spike flipped through the pages of the paperback dictionary to the indicated words. "Debase, the beef, canoe."

Dalton smiled hopefully, and Spike couldn't take it anymore. His fist smashed into the dweeby vampire's face. Spike grabbed him by his collar and loomed threateningly.

"Why does that strike me as _not right_?" Spike wondered sarcastically.

Drusilla looked up from her carefully arranged tarot cards with a moan. "It all falls apart. Miss Edith says we're barking up the wrong tree." Drusilla barked a few times to illustrate. "Nothing he can do, Spike. Secrets. Secrets locked up without a key. Useless secrets." Drusillia gave Spike an unusually lucid stare. "Can't work without daddy." She flinched at something only she could see. "Burn it, rip it, make it gone, Spike. It taunts me."

Spike hurried around the table to comfort her. "Your sire. It won't work without your sire?"

Drusilla nodded into his chest and Spike slammed a fist into the tabletop. "Sodding Angel! Lousy pillock manages to be a pain in the arse even when he's dead."

"Does that mean we don't need the book?" Dalton asked.

"Get rid of it," Spike said despondently.

Drusilla nipped at his chin. "Don't fret, my love. You'll find a way to make things right."

Spike scooped her up into his arms and kissed her. "Damn right I will. We'll keep searching. I promise you, Dru. You will be strong again."

* * *

Xander let himself into the Summers house through the kitchen and strolled into the living room. He found Buffy slouched nude on the sofa, staring listlessly into the space just beyond her knees.

"I know that look," Xander sighed. "You're thinking about Angel, aren't you."

Buffy just nodded.

"Don't move," Xander said. "I'll be right back."

Xander let himself out and jogged to the nearest convenience store, where he grabbed a tub of Buffy's favorite ice cream and a small variety of snacks to go with it. He paid cash and jogged back to the house.

Buffy was where he'd left her, her nude body slouched into the sofa cushions. She looked up as Xander came in and held up the ice cream.

"Willow ideas are usually good ideas," Xander told her sagely.

Buffy cracked a smile and let out a little laugh. Xander tossed her the ice cream and a spoon, which she snatched out of the air. He dropped the other snacks on the coffee table and started taking off his clothes, piling them on the armchair.

Once he was down to his skin, Xander flopped onto the sofa next to Buffy. She opened the ice cream, jammed the spoon into it, and carved out an enormous bite. Buffy pulled the empty spoon through her lips with an expression of bliss on her face.

"No brainfreeze," she remarked smugly.

The two of them shared a comfortable silence as they took turns with the spoon.

"There was just no point to it," Buffy finally said. "Why didn't he tell our others what sunlight would do to him?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Xander asked impishly.

Buffy snorted. "Aren't you supposed to be all in supportive mode right now?"

Xander rolled over so his chest was on the seat-cushion between Buffy's legs and his elbows were outside her thighs. He put his chin on his hands and looked up at her with his best expression of wide-eyed earnestness.

"Angel's loss will be an ache we shall carry in our hearts for years to come," Xander murmured. "He was the light in our darkness, the fire in our souls, and the beauty of the universe is diminished by his destruction. Without our Angel, life is meaningless."

Buffy stared at him for a good ten seconds before she cracked up. "Okay! Okay! Stop it! That was all kinds of disturbing."

With a mock shiver, Xander returned to his seat. "Yeah. I feel dirty now."

Buffy gave him a playful push, and ate another huge bite of ice cream. "It's just, me and Angel were just starting to have something, and then he goes and dies in a completely avoidable way."

"He did a lot of good, even though he had a whole mess of issues," Xander admitted. "His issues had issues, and he still made with the helpfulness. Sort of."

Buffy leaned into his side and put her head on his shoulder. "I miss him."

They spent a long while just reminiscing and remembering their times with Angel. Buffy snuggled into Xander's side as they talked, finding herself resting her hand on the base of his shaft while the arm he wrapped around her settled his hand on her breast.

It was still a little strange how much it _wasn't_ strange, to just _let_ their hands settle where they naturally gravitated, unrestrained by their years of being raised to believe that touching those body parts was a Big Deal. It was simple intimacy, intended as comfort, and if the source of that comfort was _also_ sexually suggestive, that didn't make it any less comforting or genuine.

For over an hour, Buffy and Xander spoke their thoughts and memories of Angel in no particular order. Tears ran down Buffy's cheeks often and freely, trickling onto Xander's pectorals.

Briefly smiling through her tears, Buffy remarked, "It was kind of neat to see Angel geeking out over something, even if it was just for a moment."

"You'd think that'd be when he'd have noticed he was about to leave Earth's shadow," Xander mused.

"It was a great moment. I'm glad I'll always have it, but you're right," Buffy said with a despairing little laugh. "That was the moment that doomed him. And now he's gone forever."

With a sob, Buffy buried her face in Xander's chest and swung a leg over his hip. Xander pulled her onto his lap as she molded herself against his front, needing to feel the closeness. His big firm hands stroked her back as she clung to him, holding as much of her skin against his as she could.

Buffy's grip slowly tightened as she cried, until Xander couldn't really breathe, but that was okay. Buffy's body shook and heaved as she let free all her grief for Angel, and probably everything else she'd been holding in, while she was at it.

Without warning, Buffy pulled back and reached down between them, gripping his manhood and aiming it into her pussy. Without hesitating, she slammed her hips down, splitting her folds open on his cock, and started riding him in a frenzy. It was violent and brutal, enough to actually hurt. She would have broken his bones and given him friction burns if he were still human. But he understood. Buffy needed to feel. She needed something physical that was intense enough to counterbalance her anguish, so she was throwing literally all of her strength into fucking him as hard as she could.

It was odd, how he felt about it. The old Xander, the one who wanted to court and claim Buffy, would have felt used. But he was over that, now. Once he untangled it from honest lust, he knew it for the childish possessiveness it was. Their friendship was a worthy thing just the way it was, and he was unconflicted about being there for Buffy, whether she needed a hug, a laugh, or a savage fuck.

Xander dug his fingers into Buffy's flesh, pulling himself up for a deep, hard kiss. They'd had a nearly cold start (a level of arousal that would have made intercourse physically impossible for humans of either sex), so despite Buffy's vicious pace, it took her more than five minutes to reach her first orgasm, and Xander a little longer than that. Buffy barely waited for her first orgasm to pass before she started up again. Xander climaxed hard, and since Buffy wasn't slowing down, he was almost immediately brought to another, and another, chaining together into one long cascade until Buffy started cumming just as much and lost enough control over her muscles that she couldn't keep going.

Buffy collapsed against Xander's chest with a long sigh. There was no sweat, and the hard breathing was due to psychological appropriateness rather than a need for oxygen, but the two of them were practically covered in their lubricating fluids and cum.

Buffy groaned when she noticed. "Oh crud. I just ruined my couch, didn't I."

"Don't worry, I got most of it with my Utility Cloud before it could soak into the fabric," Xander reassured her. "It should be fine."

Sexual fluids in Fae were very similar to their human counterparts, but improved like everything else, designed to evaporate more slowly and leave less residue when it does. In life as the Giaa intended, it was entirely redundant, but the Giaa Seed had only been concerned with the optimal design according to its objectives. Redundancy was incidental and inevitable.

Buffy looked up and met Xander's eyes. "Sorry if I went a little overboard."

"It's okay," Xander said gently. "More than. Totally of the good. It must be hard having to watch your strength all the time, and in the middle of a much-needed breakdown that's got to be worse than ever. I'm glad you could let go some."

"Breakdown?" Buffy repeated flatly.

Xander just gave her a look.

"Okay," Buffy gave in, "so it was totally a breakdown."

"Feel better now?" Xander asked sincerely.

"Some," Buffy said wryly.

With an encouraging smile, Xander leaned down and met her lips with his. It was simple and gentle this time. Buffy started moving her hips in a languid roll. There was no urgency to it, just the natural consequence of having her vagina squeezing around a hard phallus.

"Hmm. I wanna do this in my bed," Buffy said. "Put the ice cream away for me, will you?"

Buffy started to climb off of him, but with a smirk Xander moved with her, grabbing her butt to hold her steady as he rolled to his feet. Buffy latched onto him with a laugh, legs around his waist and arms around his neck.

"Sure thing, Buff," Xander agreed cheerfully, picking up the tub of ice cream in one hand while the other wrapped around Buffy's back.

Fluids dripped from where they were joined as Xander carried her into the kitchen, but the drops splintered into mist and then into vapor before reaching the floor.

Xander shut the freezer and headed up the stairs with Buffy wrapped around him. Once he reached the second floor, Buffy suddenly started giggling. She climbed off of him, pulling away and making Xander's cock slap wetly against his belly when it slipped out of her.

Then she grabbed him, and the next thing Xander knew, Buffy was carrying him bridal-style into her room.

Xander blinked, and grinned. "Oh hah hah, Buffy. Very funny."

Buffy snickered, dumping him on her bed. "I thought so."

* * *

In a simple enclosed chamber of soft white deep within the _Eliezera_, four birthing pods bloomed open. The four occupants exchanged grins as they floated out, giddy with glee at their awesome cleverness.

Four voices spoke at once. "Summary program's running. No errors."

One of the four at the left end of the row checked, "Sync test. Number."

"Twenty. Number." "One-hundred eight. Color." "Blue. Rhyme." "Due two. Fear phrase." "Frogs are the bane of joy."

Four voices giggled.

"It worked," the four chorused happily.

* * *

One corner of the sky was just starting to lighten when Jack O'Neill pulled their rented SUV into the hotel parking lot. Beside him, Samantha Carter was engrossed in something on her laptop, paging through some obscure science thing from the database Willow gave them. In the back seat, Daniel Jackson was fast asleep, propped against his passenger door, and Teal'c was reading a comic book of all things.

They'd all slept during the plane ride, but Daniel had been wearing himself out more than usual, practicing with his rediscovered super cosmic powers, even if said powers weren't quite so super or cosmic anymore. On the other hand, he could actually _use_ them without breaking Rules this time.

"This is the nicest hotel in the town?" Jack asked incredulously as he parked.

Carter looked up and blinked. "We are a few miles from the interstate, Sir. And apparently they don't get many tourists here."

Teal'c put down his comic and shook Daniel's shoulder. "DanielJackson, we have arrived."

"Guh?"

Jack hopped out and stretched. "I'll handle the checkin. Then... coffee. Definitely coffee."

Everything was arranged in advance, so all Jack had to do was show some identification to the skittish night clerk. Four keys in hand, Jack strolled back to the SUV and tossed his team theirs. Daniel caught his with telekinesis, and then plucked it out of the air with a grin.

"Daniel," Jack ground out.

"What, Jack? It's not like I'm using classified technology," Daniel argued. "Besides, there's nobody around."

Jack grunted. "Look just don't... push it. For cryin' out loud, you're like a kid with a new toy."

Daniel manfully resisted the urge to pout.

* * *

Xander watched Buffy sleep. She'd said she wanted to get in the habit of sleeping for at least an hour every night, just in case there was a slayer dream waiting for her. Once Willow finished her project, the end of the world _wouldn't_ actually be the end of the world, but it would still kinda suck.

A sudden humming noise made Xander sit up in alarm, but a moment later Willow materialized in a flash of light, and he relaxed.

"Wills!"

"Hi guys!" Willow greeted perkily.

Buffy woke up with a little sigh, and smiled when she saw Willow. Willow pounced, her nude body falling onto the bed between her two friends as she hugged them both.

"Wait, if you're here," Xander began. "You did it? You're done?"

"Nope," Willow chirped. "In fact, I'm working on it harder than ever!"

"Huh?" Buffy inquired, then she frowned in confusion. "Wait, why does my Dreamlink suddenly think your name is Willow-para?"

Willow's grin got wider, and she settled back on her knees, bouncing excitedly. "Okay, so you know how normally a Giaa keeps blank bodies on hand in case someone needs an emergency upload?"

Buffy and Xander nodded.

"I found ours!" Willow announced. "See, the SSP is a really challenging problem, and even though I can work constantly, and tirelessly, it's really the sort of problem you need more than one brain working on. So when I found our backup blanks, I... well, I kinda hijacked them."

Xander suddenly laughed. "You didn't."

Willow nodded eagerly. "I used the blanks to make copies of myself! I set it up, and went comatose for an hour or so, and when I woke up there were four of me."

Buffy's jaw dropped. "You cloned yourself?"

"Of course not," Willow admonished. "How would you even do that? You can't clone something that doesn't have DNA. What I did was _split_ myself, into four perfect copies."

Buffy shook her head. "Well, as long as this isn't gonna be an Attack of the Evil Twin thing."

"Way cool," Xander said, "but isn't it gonna be awkward having four of you running around?"

Willow shook her head. "I thought of that. I wanted the four of me to be as interchangeable as possible, so I wrote a summary program to do an automatic memory update thing, so all of me can stay in sync. I also picked random names that don't really mean anything, so you can tell each of me apart but also sticking with the being-interchangeable thing."

"Wait wait wait, does that mean you're the Willow Collective now?" Xander teased.

Willow laughed. "No, Xander. It's more like we're four separate people with four separate minds, but we all share the same long-term memory. That's not really how it works, but the effect's mostly the same."

"Ah, oh well," Xander said with a mock sigh.

Impishly, Willow made her face blank and her posture robotic, and intoned in a deep voice, "We are the Willow. Lower your pants and surrender your hugs. We will add your affectionate and kinky distinctiveness to our own. Your flesh will moisten to service us. Resistance is futile. You will be snuggled."

Willow barely managed to keep a straight face long enough to finish, since Xander was cracking up and Buffy was snickering into her hand. Xander grabbed Willow and pulled her down into a kiss.

"You know," Xander said. "That'd probably've been more impressive if there was more than one of you doing it."

Willow-para pouted playfully. "Yeah, but Willow-rhom and Willow-kink are working full time on the SSP, and Willow-icos is looking after the ship, landscaping Venus, working on safety protocols for Venus-grown stuff, and keeping Dawn company."

"I should visit her after school today," Buffy said.

"Oooh, that's right, it's Career Week," Willow remembered.

* * *

"Oh, here I am. Hm. Personal shopper, or motivational speaker. Neato!"

Samantha Carter, clad in her dress-blues and carrying a case of pamphlets and brochures and such, strode passed the well-dressed teenage brunette and into the designated section of Sunnydale High School.

Jack O'Neill was waiting for her inside, having set up a table and curtain in their allotted space.

"Tell me again why we're putting on this dog and pony show?" Jack muttered to her.

"Well, Sir, there could be any number of reasons this particular cover story was deemed necessary," Carter pointed out.

"Politics?" Jack guessed as he helped her arrange the materials on their table.

"That is one possibility, Sir," Carter replied noncommittally.

Jack grunted. "The part I'm not getting, is why would our modesty-challenged friends set themselves up as highschool students?"

"At a guess?" Carter said. "Long-term strategy. The younger they claim to be, the longer they can maintain the assumed identities."

Jack glanced at her. "Long-term, you say."

"It doesn't necessarily disagree with the claim that their continuing interest in this town is purely personal." Carter paused. "Do _you_ think Daniel and Teal'c are going to find anything... under our purview?"

"Oh, probably," Jack said airily. "That is the way our luck tends to run."

* * *

Willow spotted Giles carrying a stack of books towards the library. Donning the resolve face, Willow grabbed Buffy's arm and followed after him.

The two of them arrived in the library just in time to see one of the stacks Giles was carrying begin to tip and fall. Buffy caught the books and steadied them.

Giles let out a sigh of relief. "Buffy. Thank you. I've been, uh, indexing my archive of Watcher diaries. You would be amazed at how numbingly pompous and long-winded some of these Watchers were."

Buffy plopped down in a chair. "Color me stunned."

"Hi Giles," Willow greeted.

Giles swung his head around, startled. "Willow. Ah, you're back?"

"More of the or less," Willow said. "The program isn't done yet, so most of me is still working on it so we can save everyone."

Giles raised a finger and opened his mouth, then shook his head resolutely and turned to Buffy. "So, uh, I trust last night's patrol was fruitful?"

"Just the usual slayage," Buffy told him sourly.

"I see," Giles said. "Well, uh, I'm afraid I have some news. It seems Miss Calendar has had to move away from Sunnydale. Some sort of family trouble, I believe. She told me she wouldn't be returning."

Willow gasped. "Oh no!" She gave Giles a big hug. "Are you okay?"

Giles smiled faintly despite himself. "I'll endure."

"Bummer, Giles," Buffy offered.

"Ahem, ah yes," Giles said, pulling a small envelope from his pocket. "She asked me to give you this, Willow."

Willow pulled out the note and grinned bashfully. "She's arranged for me to take over teaching her class for the rest of the term."

"When's she leaving?" Buffy asked.

"This morning," Giles revealed.

"Drat," Buffy complained. "She was in on stuff. We could have offered her the upgrade."

"I don't think it'll be too long before I finish the SSP," Willow consoled. "A few weeks, at most. What're the chances she'll die in a car crash in that time? Or get attacked by a vampire? Or have a spell go wrong? Or choke on a chicken bone. Or..."

"Very comforting, Wills," Buffy deadpanned.

Willow grinned sheepishly. "My bad."

Giles had winced at each possibility and was pinching the bridge of his nose by the end. Willow and Buffy exchanged a sly look.

"Well," Giles diverted. "Perhaps one of you would like to help sorting one of these stacks?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Seriously, what is your deal, Giles? First you're all condemny, and then you're totally with the ignoringness. Why won't you talk about this?"

Giles polished his glasses. "There is nothing to say. You have argued yourselves into an unassailable position. Any counterargument I could raise, you can simply dismiss by saying it will cost lives, never mind that those lives are already forfeit in the natural order."

"But any other way will cost lives," Willow protested. "And, okay, violating the natural order and stuff, but why should we cooperate with a natural order that's busy murdering us by the billions? And in such slow and cruel ways to boot?"

Giles floundered for a moment. "Because." He rallied. "No, that is not the issue, Willow."

"Then why'd you bring it up?" Buffy asked.

"That's not..."

"Then what is?" Willow interrupted.

"Free will. Choice," Giles said. "You intend _force_ this, this upgrade on everyone, and I will have no part in that."

Willow shook her head. "We're not taking away anyone's choice, Giles. If anything, we're giving them one. Right now, there is no choice. Only death. But we have an alternative!"

"A proven alternative," Buffy added.

"And I'm working really hard to make sure nobody gets left out of that choice," Willow continued. "So what if we don't ask what they want _before_ we turn them into Fae? The choice is the same either way. Being dead, or being Fae. Anyone can still make that same choice _after_ we upgrade them. The way we're doing it just means nobody gets left out, nobody's choice gets lost in the din, and nobody has to make their choice under duress."

Giles sighed. "No one is going to see it that way, Willow."

"At least they'll be alive to _have_ an opinion," Buffy grumbled.

"Be that as it may, I still will not be party to this irresponsible scheme of yours," Giles stated firmly.

"Irresponsible nothing!" Willow protested. "We are taking the course of action that leads to the least deaths, period. Maybe I don't wanna be party to this irresponsible attitude of yours!"

"Willow..." Giles nearly growled.

"Okay, different subject," Buffy cut in. "What about you Giles? Why don't you want to be Fae?"

Giles polished his glasses again. "I recognize that there are advantages, but even if I thought those advantages worth trading my human existence for, I simply cannot afford to disappear for... how long did you say?"

"Between two and three weeks," Willow answered reflexively.

Buffy grunted in frustration. "Giles, this is the same thing I had to realize myself, and the same thing I told my mom... You'll _still have_ your human existence, in all the ways that matter."

"Please, Buffy, Willow," Giles sighed. "Can we talk about this later? I have a lot of material to sort through."

Buffy and Willow exchanged a look, and Buffy hopped out of her chair. Willow gave Giles a bit of a kicked-puppy look, which set him to polishing his glasses again. Buffy slung a comforting arm around Willow's waist as they pushed through the swinging doors.

* * *

When Xander spotted the two members of SG-1 at one of the Career Week booths, he froze to the spot and swore loudly enough that the vehemence of his profanity seemed to pull a sadistically grinning Principle Snyder straight from the ether.

"Such language, Harris?" he gloated.

"I believe it's called English?" Xander offered.

Snyder grinned. "_Detention_, Mr. Harris."

_Buffy? Willow? SG-1 is here,_ Xander sent.

_What? How? Why?_ Buffy replied.

_Oh... tadpoles,_ Willow swore.

After Snyder went off to harass someone else, Xander ambled over to where Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter were giving him bland looks.

"Colonel. Major," Xander greeted cheerfully. "Come here often?"

"Xander," Jack nodded. "Almost didn't recognize you with clothes on."

The woman in the next booth over gave the Air Force Colonel a shocked look. Carter wanted to facepalm, but settled for a discreet elbow to Jack's ribs. Xander grinned, and tried not to laugh maniacally.

"Ah, that... came out wrong," Jack said.

"So, what brings you to this here humble little town?" Xander asked.

"Why, to tempt and inspire the next generation of fine young airmen, of course," Jack claimed.

"Uh huh," Xander deadpanned. "Great. Well. I just don't think the Air Force is for me. So... seeya 'round."

"Wait," Carter said. "There are a few things we need to discuss with you three."

_Wills? Do you mind if SG-1 meets us at your place?_ Xander sent.

Buffy and Willow had just then arrived in the lounge. Willow caught his eye and gave a kind of half-shrug half-nod.

Xander faced Jack. "Know where the Rosenberg residence is?"

Jack glanced at Carter, who nodded.

"We'll be there all evening," Xander told them.

"Alrighty then," Jack said. "Pamphlet?"

Xander went over to where Buffy and Willow were standing. A goon in a suit was looming over Willow. The red-head gave her fellow Fae a bewildered look and followed the goon into the large, black-curtained Ix Software booth.

"Oh boy," Carter groaned.

"What?" Jack wondered.

"A major software conglomerate may have just recruited an alien," Carter said.

"Poor alien," Jack deadpanned.

* * *

Willow followed the big guy in the suit through the curtains, blinking in surprise when a waiter in a white jacket offered her a tray of appetizers.

"Try the canape. It's excellent," suit-guy suggested.

Willow shrugged and grabbed one. "What is all this?"

"You've been selected to meet with Mr. McCarthy, head recruiter for Ix, the world's leading software concern. The jet was delayed by fog at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but he should be here any minute. Please," the guy said, gesturing towards a black leather couch, "make yourself comfortable."

"But I didn't even take the test yet," Willow pointed out in confusion.

"The test is irrelevant," suit-guy told her. "We've been tracking you for some time."

"Is that a good thing?" Willow asked.

"I would think so," he said. "We're extremely selective. In fact, only one other Sunnydale student met our criteria."

Apparently that was all he had to say, because he turned away and left the booth with his partner. Willow stared after them, feeling a little stunned that the big bad Ix Software had actually noticed her.

"Wowza," Willow whispered to herself as she took a bite of the various-whatever-on-a-fancy-cracker.

Willow turned to see who this other student was, and found that cute guitarist boy sitting at one end of the leather couch, staring suspiciously at another tray of canape. Willow went and sat next to him.

The boy glanced over at her, and did a double-take. After a moment of staring, during which Willow tried for a friendly smile, he held the tray towards her.

"Canape?" he offered.

"I got some," Willow said. "I'm Willow."

"I know," he blurted. "I mean, I'm Oz."

Willow perked up a little, catching the signs even in that short exchange that Oz might have a crush on her. It was either that or he was afraid of her, but Willow couldn't think of why that would be true. All of Eelesia's experience let her easily recognize his interest, but Willow wasn't sure what to do about it. All of Eelesia's experience was with a culture where nobody thought their affections or desires were something they should keep to themselves. High school culture, on the other hand... Oh to heck with it. High school culture could go lick a frog.

"I've seen you around. You're in that band," Willow said. "Hey, um, do you have a crush on me?"

Oz's eyes snapped onto her as he gaped slightly. He finally nodded. "Uh, pretty much yeah."

Willow grinned. "Cool."

Oz slowly smiled.

"So, um," Willow started, waving a hand to indicate the large curtained-off area they were in. "I guess you're good with code, huh?"

"It's a definite possibility," Oz admitted.

* * *

Kendra Young flattened herself atop a pile of luggage as the airliner's cargo hatch opened up. A baggage handler climbed in and started setting up to move the luggage, but then he noticed where Kendra had torn into one of the cargo nets in search of water. Kendra scowled at her carelessness.

"What the hell?" the baggage man muttered.

Kendra shifted her weight to spring, and the man looked around for the source of the noise, pulling out a flashlight and brandishing it like a club.. "Hey, you're not supposed to be in here!"

Leaping from her hiding place, Kendra kicked out. The man's head snapped back, and she quickly followed up with two more strikes to ensure he stayed down for a while. Kendra peered out onto the tarmac, smoothly jumping down when she saw the coast was clear.

Kendra had made it to the hellmouth, and she was ready to hunt.

* * *

Jack parked the rented SUV at the curb in front of the well-kept two-story suburban house.

"Nice place," Jack commented.

Carter gathered up the NDAs and followed Jack and Daniel up the walk while Teal'c adjusted his hat. Jack rang the bell.

A call of, "It's open!" came from inside.

Jack exchanged a glance and a shrug with his team and opened the door. The four of them let themselves in. Once they were inside, the door suddenly swung shut on its own as a naked Willow stepped into the foyer.

"Hi guys," Willow greeted. "Come in, have a seat, and all that stuff."

Willow padded back into the den. Jack and his team exchanged awkward glances. It was one thing to have the aesthetically idealized Fae going around without any of the important bits covered in the context of them being clearly alien, but in the American suburbs it was just disturbing.

Following the naked redhead, Jack looked around, noticing the sparce impersonal way the house was decorated. His eyes landed on a framed picture, showing a couple posing with a young girl who was obviously Willow. Jack frowned inwardly. Willow claimed to be six-hundred-something years old. Unless that picture was a fake, something wasn't right here.

In the den, the end tables had been pushed out to make room for a nest of pillows and blankets between the three-seater and the two-seater. A naked Xander was seated with his back to the two-seater.

"And you looked so normal, earlier," Jack snarked.

Xander shrugged. "Normal is relative."

"Ah, where's Buffy?" Daniel asked.

"Visiting her daughter," Willow told them as she plopped down by Xander's feet. "She'll be down in a minute."

"Buffy has a daughter?" Carter asked, surprised.

"Yeah, her name's Dawn," Xander shared.

Carter set the NDAs on the tables and took a seat on the sofa. "How many of you are there? We've only met you two and Buffy."

"Oh, a few," Willow said vaguely. "Buffy's coming."

Before anyone could ask, there was the familiar hum of an Asgard beam, and a naked Buffy appeared in a white flash. She was holding a bundle of something dark and clothlike, which she tossed to Xander.

"So what's the what, huh?" Buffy asked. "If you wanted to talk to us you could have just called, you know."

"Well, a few fine folks... and some less than fine folks... are a tad worried about how you've set yourselves up here, _Miss Summers_," Jack told them. "Throwin' around big words like _infiltration_, and such. And hey, I thought you told us you couldn't do the beaming thing?"

"Well, now we can, no thanks to you guys," Buffy said.

"When you turned us down, I went looking elsewhere," Willow explained. "Imagine my surprise when I found an invisible al'kesh just sitting in orbit, all abandoned and stuff. I thought _you_ told us the goa'uld didn't have that technology?"

"They don't," Carter said. "Unless... You're talking about Osiris' ship! It has a stolen Asgard system."

Jack put his elbows on his knees and frowned. "You know, we've been looking for that."

Willow grinned hopefully. "Uh, finders keepers?"

"Can we get back to why you're here?" Buffy asked. "We told you, we just wanna be able to see our friends."

Daniel gazed at them thoughtfully. "How long have you three been living here? We were under the impression that it was a relatively short amount of time between your arrival and your ship's."

"That's... complicated," Willow told them.

"We've got time," Jack said.

"Not that kind of complicated," Willow said evasively.

"Well what about these friends of yours?" Jack asked. "How much do they know?"

Willow went on being vague. "You don't need to worry about them."

"Why don't you let us decide that?" Jack said.

"Because they don't need to be involved," Buffy said. "They've done nothing to deserve your attention."

"So you say," Jack grumbled.

"So..." Xander prompted after a short silence.

"Well, um," Carter began. "The other reason we're here is to ask you to sign these Non-Disclosure Agreements. It'll be a good start at putting the higher-ups at ease. It's a concern that you might inadvertently divulge classified information about the Stargate Program."

"Oh, and since we're living down here and we've got human identities, we can sign an agreement and have it not be totally meaningless," Willow guessed.

"That's the idea," Carter told them.

"Well alright, hand 'em over," Xander said.

Willow, of course, finished reading her copy first. She set it down and gave SG-1 a frown.

"We will not agree to this," Willow said. "We haven't and we won't talk about the Stargate or about you guys to anyone who doesn't already know about it. That is reasonable. But this says we're not allowed to talk about _anything_ unearthly, and that is a ridiculous demand."

"Wait what? Lemme see," Buffy demanded.

"It's a matter of national security," Carter started to explain.

"No, that is total crap," Buffy said. "You don't own us, and you certainly don't own_space_. Even the goa'uld attacked in ships. You're in charge of the Stargate, and you've got ships like the _Prometheus_, and that's a big national secret. Okay, fine. We won't tell anyone about _you_. But we didn't come through the Stargate, and neither did the invasion fleet we battled. How can you possibly think you have a claim on that information?"

"There are some things the world isn't ready to know," Carter tried again.

"Well, yeah, but who made that your call? If the existence of the goa'uld _actually is _one of those things, you don't need to hide it. People will do that just fine on their own," Buffy shot back.

"You can't possibly know that for sure," Carter pointed out.

"I so can," Buffy argued, but paused as she got sidetracked. "And you know what's strange? That urge to ignore anything The World Isn't Ready to Know never seemed to happen in our old universe. Maybe it's not that people are like that, but something's making them that way." Buffy glanced upwards. "Non-interference my butt."

Carter opened her mouth to continue down that line, but Jack interrupted her.

"Look, if you don't sign, I'm gonna have to go back to my bosses and tell them you're a security breach," Jack said. "That's not gonna end in fun times for anyone."

"Buffy," Daniel soothed. "This is to protect your friends as much as it is to protect us. You've already had first-hand experience with the kind of danger they could be in from certain people who might think they know something about you. With your NDAs on record, it's less likely those unscrupulous people will think your friends are worth troubling with."

Buffy grimaced.

Willow shook her head. "That's rather flimsy, Doctor Jackson. No, Buffy's right. We'll agree to keep Stargate Command a secret, but you have no authority to tell us what to do with information that didn't come from your organization."

Xander nodded in agreement. "Look, none of us are interested in going on the news or dealing with a media circus. We just want the same courtesy you're expecting from us."

"Oh, there's no way that's going to go over well." Jack glanced at Carter. "I don't necessarily agree, but they have a point. Can we modify the NDAs?"

"Here," Willow said, handing over her copy before Carter could answer. "I crossed out all the parts we don't agree on."

Carter looked it over. "We're going to need to call this in."

* * *

While SG-1 was in the other room, Xander stood up and unfolded the bundle Buffy had thrown him. There were three pieces. There was a black half-jacket, something that resembled a pair of black denim pants, while the last looked kind of like a really wide belt made of smaller belts and folded shiny dark red fabric.

"So what is it?" Xander asked.

Buffy shrugged. "Well, while I was playing with Dawn, I mentioned to Willow about your guy problem. It's kinda unfair how you have to put up with discomfort 'cause guy clothes totally aren't designed for Fae. So Willow made that."

"I'm calling it an underbelt, for now," Willow told him. "Even though you don't wear anything over it. I designed it myself!"

Xander arranged the belt and held it out in front of him. It was seven inches wide around the sides and back, and made of a braid of glossy black leather. It was lined on the inside with something like red satin over a thin layer of padding. The shiny red fabric encased the lower edge of the belt-braid in a layering of folds that rose halfway up the width of the outside of the belt, while at the upper edge a faux-collar formed by thicker padding jutted up and outward from his waist. In the front, the braid fanned upwards to a peak, while on the inside, Xander felt a wide groove in the padding to accommodate his manhood.

"Inventive," Xander complimented, giving Willow a proud smile.

Willow hopped up and kissed him. "I made the pants to go with it. See the the wires sticking up from the waist?"

Xander nodded. The pants looked like black denim, but felt softer. Once Xander held them out, he saw what Willow was talking about. The sides of the pants were slit, forming a 'V' shape with the point down at the knee. There was nothing that would hold the pants up on their own, but sticking up out of the front and back were a series of small metallic wires.

"The wires are superconductive, to be easy to manipulate," Willow continued. "A human would never be able to put these on, but all you have to do is feed the wires into the little openings on the bottom of the belt and into the little tension clamps sewn into the leather."

"Cool. What about the jacket?" Xander asked.

"Um, it's just a jacket, I thought it'd still be a little too conspicuous if you went completely bare-chested," Willow explained.

Xander held said garment out in front of him. It would cover his arms, and his shoulders, and not much else. The bottom corners would just barely cover his nipples, and the sides would cover maybe three ribs.

The outfit wasn't something he could wear to school, and it kind of looked like something an anime character would wear, but it would let him go out where clothing was required without it being a burden.

Just then, SG-1 came back into the room.

"Looks we'll have to get back to you," Jack O'Neill told them.

Samantha Carter explained, "Our higher-ups are willing to compromise, but they want to go over the altered documents and draw up new ones before we agree."

Willow smiled innocently. "See, we _can_ all just get along."

Jack chuckled despite himself, and turned to wave his team towards the door, calling back a flippant, "We'll see you at school, kiddoes!"

Once they were gone, Buffy pulled a shimmery white folded bundle out from under the end tables. "I'm gonna follow them and keep watch for a while. Last thing we need is SG-1 getting themselves eaten."

Quickly donning the airy silver-white shorts and tanktop, Buffy slipped out the back door and took to the rooftops. Her bare feet were soft and silent as she dashed from house to house, tracking SG-1's SUV.

* * *

Kendra ducked under the vampire's clumsy swing and drove Mr. Pointy into his back. As the vampire dusted, Kendra quickly scanned for further threats. The alley was empty, and her instincts were quiet, so she slipped her stake back into her pocket and continued towards this 'Willy's' establishment she'd overheard a pair of vampires talking about.

There was no sound, no hint, except a slight raising of the hair on her neck and a whisper of cloth from above. Kendra snapped around, spotting a figure leaping between two rooftops back the way she'd come, a fast-moving silhouette against the stars and a flash of skin and silver in the street lamps.

Kendra sprang to the side, leaping from wall to wall across the alley until she reached the flat rooftops of the blocky brick buildings. Scanning the horizon for movement, Kendra caught a glimpse in the distance and moved to follow.

She didn't know what she was chasing. She didn't think a vampire could jump like that. But it wasn't human, and that made it Kendra's concern.

As she tracked it across the town, Kendra frowned. She was having trouble keeping up, and she kept losing track of her quary. If it noticed her, it'd be able to get away from her easily.

Fortunately, the demon seemed to be cutting a fairly straight course. After a mad dash across the rooftops of the town, Kendra came to overlook a hotel parking lot. She was actually somewhat out of breath, and stuck to the shadows while her breathing calmed.

Then doors of a big boxy car opened, and her instincts screamed at her when she laid eyes on the largest of the four figures that emerged. The distraction cost her, and she lost track of the roof-jumper, but that could wait. Whoever the other three were, they were human, and all to likely oblivious to the danger they were in.

Kendra started looking for a good place to stage an ambush.

* * *

Buffy perched on the roof of the hotel, laying idly in a little nook with her eyes closed, watching the feed from the sensor fog Willow had isolated for her. Okay, so she was totally spying on SG-1, but it wasn't like she was going to use anything she learned against them, and it was the easiest way to make sure they didn't get eaten.

Jack O'Neill apparently agreed with Buffy's argument, but didn't think it was worth going against orders for. He also apparently thought there was something off about the Fae's story, but he wasn't sure what.

Teal'c wasn't concerned either way, and mostly just watched TV.

Samantha Carter sympathized with the Fae's alleged motivations, but thought the government was in the right and the Fae ought to play by their rules if they wanted to live on their planet. She didn't say it in quite those words, but that was the sentiment.

Daniel Jackson... Buffy gaped in surprise. Daniel was practicing magic. What the heck? When did that happen? Daniel was standing with a look of concentration on his face as the bullets from his spare clip slowly orbited in front of him. Apparently he was improving in how many objects he could levitate at once, but his practice wasn't improving how much mass he could move.

Buffy settled back down, letting her mind wander while she kept a virtual eye on them.

Teal'c announced he was going to the vending machines, and asked if anyone wanted anything. Buffy watched as he put on his hat and left the suite.

* * *

Teal'c studied the selection of snacks. A reflection in the glass front of the vending machine was his only warning. Teal'c dove to the side as a knife buried itself in the glass. He rolled to his feet in a defensive stance, and caught a glimpse of his attacker before she was on him again.

A teenage girl, skin in the middle ranges, form-fitting clothing and tied black hair, with an expression of cold determination.

Teal'c parried a stab, staggering under the unexpected force of the blow. The girl ruthlessly followed up with a kick that Teal'c twisted to absorb, but it still struck his ribs with insane strength. He felt something crack.

Ignoring the pain, Teal'c planted his feet and exchanged a blindingly-fast series of strikes and blocks with the girl, adjusting his tactics as though he were fighting a goa'uld. She wasn't, though. She was too strong even for a false god, but Teal'c didn't have time to puzzle out what she might be.

He took a shallow cut to his arm in exchange for finally knocking the knife out of her hand, but she adapted instantly, using his disarming strike to move into a grapple. Teal'c grunted in pain as the girl dislocated his shoulder, taking advantage of the close proximity to head-butt her.

The girl stumbled back and Teal'c struck out. His open-hand strike missed her throat by inches, but his followup kick landed. It should have broken her leg, but it was like kicking solid steel, and she caught his leg before he could pull it back.

Pulling a second knife from somewhere, she plunged it into his caff and tossed him onto his back. The air rushed from his lungs as Teal'c hit the concrete, and a moment later the girl was on top of him, holding her knife to his neck.

"You answer or you die," the girl said in a heavy accent. "What are you?"

An unexpected voice answered from right behind her. "Funny. That's what I was gonna ask you."

The knife lurched away from his neck, almost tearing itself from the super-strong girl's grip, but she held on and whirled to her feet to face the newcomer. It was Buffy, clad in a tiny tanktop and shorts that were made of some exotic silvery-white material. The unknown girl lashed out with a spinning kick that Buffy stopped cold with an arm block. Teal'c raised an impressed eyebrow.

Buffy darted inside the other girl's guard. Her knife sank into Buffy's torso under her arm, but, obviously, failed to penetrate. Buffy grabbed her and slammed her against the wall, stunning her, then spun and in a move that violated everything Teal'c knew about leverage, hurled the other girl over the iron railing and into the parking lot.

A moment later, Buffy was at his side. "You alright there, Teal'c? That leg doesn't look too good."

The mysterious accented girl hit the tarmac with a distant thud, and Teal'c noticed that the railing in the direction Buffy had thrown her was bent inwards, as though it had been pulled towards Buffy by some immense force. Ah, so she did it all with magnets, as O'Neill would say.

"I will survive," Teal'c said. "My leg was wounded cleanly. It is my shoulder that is the greater injury, I believe. It can wait. You should apprehend the assailant."

Buffy nodded. "I was gonna. Just wanted to make sure you weren't gonna bleed out."

Slowly and carefully, Teal'c staggered to his feet. Buffy smiled at him and turned, leaping over the railing and landing in a crouch next to a little green hatchback. The dark-skinned girl in the stylish pants wasn't moving when Buffy reached her, but looked to be more or less intact except for a swelling ankle and the whole being knocked out thing.

Lifting the unconscious girl in her arms, Buffy was greeted by the sight of Jack, Carter, and Daniel rushing out of the stairwell with weapons drawn.

"I called it. I freakin' called it. Why'd I have to be right," Jack was muttering to himself.

"We need chains. Heavy ones," Buffy ordered. "Rope or plastic isn't gonna do more than slow her down. Whatever she is, she's almost as strong as me."

Jack shut his mouth, clearly thinking back to when Buffy had made the SGC's badasses look like kids with capguns.

"Is she Fae?" Carter asked.

"Well, seeing as she's got visible injuries and's all out cold and stuff, I'm gonna go with no," Buffy said, rolling her eyes.

* * *

Kendra slowly came to. Her head was pounding and when she tried to move, the cold metal of chain dug into her arms and legs, torso and neck. She looked up and found herself surrounded by seven looming figures, two of which, a tall man and a blonde woman, had guns pointed at her.

The demon she'd attempted to interrogate was standing back, favoring one leg as he regarded Kendra impassively. She glared suspiciously. Did the demon have these humans under his control? Then she noticed the other three.

It chilled her a little that she didn't notice them sooner. Her instincts were sending her confusing signals, and that threw her off. No demon or vampire she'd ever met had felt like those three. There was the blonde girl in silvery-white sleepwear from before. Beside her was a red-haired girl in a black strapless top (with short sleeves but no shoulders? How...?) and a green pleated skirt, and next to her... Kendra fought not to blush. A very fit boy in a black jacket that left most of his sculpted torso bare, and an odd ruffled red sash belt wrap thing around his waist.

"Alright, let's start with an easy one," the armed man with graying hair said. "Who and what are you?"

"Ah am Kendra," she announced defiantly. "Ah am de Vampire Slayer."

The little blonde in white's jaw dropped. "Huwhuh?"


	11. What's My Other Line

**What's My Other Line**

"You're the vampire what?" Jack repeated flatly.

Buffy leaned into Kendra's personal space. "Nice try. What are you really?"

"Ah am de Vampire Slayer!" Kendra insisted, glaring. "Why don't you tell me what you are, demon?"

"Vampires?" Carter repeated.

Buffy almost blurted out that _she_ was the Slayer, but stopped herself as she realized she didn't want SG-1 to know that.

_How can she be the Slayer? I'm the Slayer!_ Buffy sent to Willow-para and Xander in frustration.

"You know about vampires?" Daniel asked Jack.

"Doesn't everybody?" Jack asked. "It's just one of those things nobody talks about."

Willow gave her a wide-eyed look. _When one dies another is called. You died, Buffy!_

_Only for a minute!_ Buffy replied.

_I guess that was long enough,_ Xander sent.

Daniel facepalmed. "Jack."

"Vampires, Sir?" Carter asked faintly.

_So you guys think it's true? Wait, holy crap, if it is this could be the perfect cover,_Buffy realized.

"I was under the impression that vampires were a fictional being?" Teal'c put in.

_Only if Giles goes along with it,_ Xander pointed out.

"There are several fictional species that are called vampires, but there is also at least one real species," Daniel explained.

Carter watched this exchange with a shaken expression, and then sat down heavily, whispering, "Oh you have got to be kidding me. How did I miss this?"

_Willow-icos just beamed down to the library and is filling Giles in,_ Willow-para sent.

Buffy glared at Kendra. "If you are the Slayer, why'd you attack Teal'c?"

"He is a demon," Kendra declared.

"Only a little bit," Buffy protested. "But, he's so totally a good guy."

For the first time, Kendra looked uncertain, but then she frowned suspiciously. "And what are you, then?"

"None of your business," Buffy told her.

"Hold it!" Jack cut in. "You fellas have heard of this Slayer deal? Wanna share with the class?"

Willow answered, "You learn things, living in this town. We know someone who'll be able to find out if Kendra is really the Slayer. Giles. He's a Watcher."

"A what?" Jack asked, glancing at Daniel only to get a shrug.

"How about it, Kendra?" Buffy asked. "We let you up, and you promise not to wig out until we talk to the Watcher."

"Wig out?" Kendra repeated in confusion.

Buffy regarded her carefully. "Yeah, no attacking, no fighting?"

"Very well. Ah agree," Kendra gave in after a moment.

Xander knelt and started undoing the chains. Kendra tried to remain stoic, but her gaze kept sliding onto Xander's bare torso. Sheesh, you'd think she'd never seen a boy before.

"Hey, hold the phone," Jack exclaimed. "Slayer Girl there almost killed Teal'c!"

"Ah tought ah was protecting you," Kendra told Jack stiffly.

The last of the chains came off, and Xander offered his hand and a smile. "Hi. I'm Xander."

Flustered, Kendra avoided looking at him as she stood up warily and mumbled something half-way polite. She stumbled on her sprained ankle, and Xander caught her. She blushed visibly.

_Giles is calling the council,_ Willow reported. _And he agreed to keep Buffy's slayerness a secret from the government._

* * *

Daniel frowned thoughtfully. "Kendra, would you mind standing next to Teal'c for a moment?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow and Jack exclaimed, "What? Why?"

"They're both hurt, Jack," Daniel pointed out.

"Daniel," Jack growled.

"Not classified, Jack," Daniel reminded him stubbornly.

Jack threw up his hands. "Fine! T?"

Daniel stood in front of Kendra and Teal'c, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. He closed his eyes and concentrated, suffusing himself in the emotional state that is most commonly associated with heartfelt worship. It was kind of difficult, since he'd actually met the being he was going to invoke, but Daniel had a lot of respect for Oma and that was close enough to be a good starting point.

He didn't have any of the material components, but the texts all agreed that the more familiar one was with a spell or the power it invoked, the smaller a part of the ritual one needed to perform. That made sense to Daniel. If the important part was the worship energy, he only needed to draw Oma's attention and indicate which spell he was casting.

Once he'd achieved the necessary mental state, Daniel spoke, "Exaudi orationem meam, matrona Desala. Hoc fractus corpore vocat ad ducem. Consano!"

Power rushed through him, and Daniel focused on Teal'c and Kendra's bodies. All Daniel had to do was aim it at the damage, and Oma would take care of the detail work. The mental effort involved was still somewhat taxing, but nothing like what would be involved in trying to repair a wound at the cellular level on his own. It was impressive, Daniel thought, and quickly seized that impressed feeling and rolled it into the worship that was fueling the spell.

Finally, it was done, and Daniel took a long breath as he stepped back.

"Oh. Tank you, sir," Kendra said shyly.

Teal'c inclined his head.

* * *

"We've been looking at this the wrong way around!" Samantha Carter suddenly blurted as the group of eight filed out of the hotel room.

Everyone jumped a little, and Jack gave her an inquisitive glance. "Carter?"

"We came to Sunnydale to make sure that there weren't any security concerns due to the Fae's presense," Carter explained. "But the question we should have been asking all along is, why here? Why did the Fae show up in this town in the first place? There's something here, something about this town specifically. There's just too much coincidence any other way you look at it, Sir."

"Well, you're right about that," Buffy admitted.

Kendra stepped back in surprise. "You don't know about de hellmouth?"

"Hellmouth?" Daniel repeated thoughtfully.

Willow tapped her chin in consideration. "Well, if magics are like wind, then the hellmouth is like Jupiter's great red spot."

"That is a _horrible_ analogy," Xander complained.

Willow pouted. "Well let's see you do better, mister. Anywho, what it is isn't as important as what it does. What it does is drastically reduce the energy required to reach other branches of this multiverse, and it has a bunch of side-effects, like forming pocket worlds, and giving _everything_ in a few miles radius some small measure of magical recognition."

"it tis a convergence of mystical energies," Kendra recited. "Demons and vampires are drawn to the hellmouth, for its evil strengthens them."

"How does it do that?" Carter asked.

"Evil begets evil," Kendra answered. "It just is."

Carter frowned in disappointment and looked to Willow for clarification.

Willow shrugged. "Sorry. I don't know how it works. I mean, I could guess. I can think of a few ways it _could_ work, but studying a hellmouth closely enough to find out is like super dangerous."

Carter sighed. "Well, that does make me feel a little better about apparently being the only one in the room who didn't know Earth has a population of vampires. If they mostly congregate around these hellmouths..."

"Well, let's go so you can talk to the expert on hellmouthy stuff," Buffy said.

Everyone continued down to the ground level, and Jack unlocked the SUV. Carter claimed shotgun as usual, but Jack stopped short.

"A bit of a problem," Jack commented. "How're we gonna fit eight people in this thing?"

"We'll stack up," Buffy answered, sliding into the back seat.

Jack, Daniel, Carter, and Kendra stared as Xander climbed onto Buffy's lap, and then Willow perched on Xander's lap, pulling the seatbelt across all three of them.

"That has got to be a moving violation," Jack muttered as he got in the driver's side.

Kendra squeezed in between Daniel and the tower of Fae, leaving just enough room for Teal'c on Daniel's other side. It was a bit cramped though.

"Is Buffy okay under there?" Carter asked in concern.

An arm stuck out in front of Kendra and made a short series of signs.

Daniel snorted. "It's sign language. She says she's fine."

After Jack started the engine and pulled out, Willow reminded them, "You know, I could have just beamed us all over there."

Jack resisted a sudden urge to smash his head on the steering wheel.

* * *

"So what _is_ a Watcher?" Daniel asked once they were on the road.

"They're... well," Willow said. "I suppose to you guys they're the organization that buried your you-know-what way back in ancient Egypt in the first place."

Daniel choked. "The shadowmen? They're still around?"

Willow shrugged and Xander said, "Never heard them called that."

"Wait just a minute!" Jack exclaimed. "This Giles guy knows about the..."

"Well, he does own a first-hand account of its burial," Willow said.

Daniel looked like an eager little kid. "Do you think he'd let me read it?"

"Aht," Jack cut Daniel off. "You're telling me there's some big magic secret society that's been around since the whole rebellion thing?"

"Yup," Willow confirmed.

Jack groaned. "Just once I'd like a mission to stay simple. Get some NDAs signed,_not_ find any evil plots, go home. Of course we stumble into vampire mecca and magical shadow wars and overzealous teenage superheroes... and what's the deal with that anyway?" Jack looked at Kendra in the rearview mirror. "How's a girl like you end up a Vampire Slayer, and what the heck is a Slayer anyway? And what's it got to do with these Watchers?"

"Ah was Called," Kendra answered. "Ah am de Chosen One, de one girl in all de world with the strength to fight de forces of darkness."

"Chosen by who?" Carter asked. "How'd they make you so strong?"

"It is de power itself dat chooses," Kendra explained. "When de Slayer dies, a new girl is Chosen by de power."

"How does it choose?" Carter asked. "Is it intelligent? Or does it operate on some simpler criteria?"

"Ah... it is not me concern," Kendra said.

"And the Watchers?" Jack prompted. "How are they involved?"

"Dey find girls dat might become de Slayer," Kendra said. "Dey train dem, prepair dem. Dey watch de world, and send de Slayer where she is needed."

"How long as this been going on?" Jack demanded.

"Ah do not know," Kendra said. "It has always been dis way."

"Hmm..."

"Daniel?" Jack prompted.

Daniel looked up. "There's a story. A very old story about the shadowmen. I don't remember it that well, and I'm not sure I even still have the volume I read it in, but this Slayer power... I think it might have some kind of relevance."

"How long have you been the Slayer, Kendra?" Carter asked.

"About seven months," Kendra replied.

"Is it normal for the power to choose someone so... young?" Carter asked delicately.

Kendra nodded. "It is de way it is."

Jack growled, but didn't say anything.

* * *

When they got to the school, Giles confirmed Kendra's status, and SG-1 found themselves with a whole new headache. Daniel got along with Giles instantly, of course, and once a Watcher confirmed that Teal'c was not an enemy and the three humans weren't civilians, Kendra got along great with Daniel as well.

Of course, that was after SG-1 almost started a fight, when Giles recognized Teal'c as a jaffa, and immediately concluded that they were the ones who had the Stargate. Daniel just wanted to read the Watcher's account of the rebellion against the Goa'uld, but Jack and Carter tried to convince Giles to sign an NDA, which went over about as well as one would expect, with numerous exclamations of, "bloody arrogant Americans!"

It certainly put to rest any thoughts Giles may have had about ratting the scoobies out to SG-1.

* * *

"My test says that I should look into law enforcement," Buffy said wryly. "Somewhere, someone is laughing at me."

"Well, it kinda makes sense," Willow pointed out as they ambled through the Career Fair

Buffy paused as she spotted something, nudging Willow. "Hey, Wills, that guy over there..."

Willow smiled. "Oh, that's Oz. He wants me, so he's expressing a computer nerd solidarity thing."

Oz made his way over to them. "Hey."

"Hi Oz! Do you know Buffy?" Willow asked.

"Hi," Oz greeted.

Buffy grinned at him. "Nice to meet you. Well, I'm gonna go find Xander. Later, Wills."

Willow and Oz stared at each other for a short moment, sharing a little smile. Impulsively, Willow reached over and brushed a fingertip along Oz's hair.

"Your hair is very brown today," Willow said.

"Yeah, it was a brown kinda day," Oz told her. "So, uh, did you decide? Are you gonna be a corporate computer suit guy?"

Willow chuckled nervously. "Oh, well, I think I'm gonna finish high school... and some other things... and you know, there's arguments to be made for staying open-source, and hey I don't know about the suit guy stuff. I'm not really much for the suits, or the guyness."

Something strange flickered across Oz's face, and was gone in an instant. A touch of pain, a hint of irony, a spark of guilt quickly smothered. Without her Fae memory she would have been sure she imagined it, but it was there, and Willow had no idea what it was about.

"So, what about you?" Willow asked.

Oz shrugged. "I'm not really a computer person. Or, y'know, a work of any kind, person."

"Then how'd you get selected?" Willow wondered.

"Oh, I sorta test well," Oz told her. "Y'know, which is cool. Except that it leads to jobs."

"Pesky things, those jobs," Willow teased. "What about an ambition?"

"Sure. Yeah," Oz said. "E-flat, diminished ninth."

Willow blinked. "You mean the guitar chord?"

Oz nodded. "Well, the E-flat, it, it's doable, but that diminished ninth, y'know, it's a man's chord. You could lose a finger." There it was again. That flicker of something she couldn't identify.

Willow smiled coyly. "But I like your fingers." Willow loosely twined her hand into his. "I'd be totally sad if any of 'em died for the cause before I got to know 'em."

Oz actually blushed.

* * *

Cordelia Chase was walking down the hall when a pair of hands came out of nowhere and hauled her into an empty classroom. She shrieked and flailed but a moment later she was released and found herself face to face with Buffy and Xander. The door shut behind her with an ominous slam.

"We need to talk," Xander said.

"Agh, what is your damage?" Cordelia demanded.

"Oh, I think you're gonna wanna hear this, Cordy," Xander told her.

Cordelia huffed and crossed her arms. "What do you want?"

"Remember halloween?" Buffy asked.

"Ugh," Cordelia grunted. "How could I forget."

"You know when you met our costumes?" Xander prompted.

Cordelia looked away from him with a faint blush. "Yeah, so?"

"Well, Cordelia," Buffy said seriously. "That whole thing had some, like, major lasting effects, if you know what I mean."

Cordelia looked at her sharply. Buffy was deliberately wearing a tight little shirt for this conversation, and puffed her chest out. Cordelia's eyes went wide and she pointed accusingly.

"Oh my god you got a magic boob job?"

"Nope," Buffy replied, popping her 'p' and grinning.

"Oh, this is so much better than that," Xander told her.

Buffy smirked. "How'd you like to be completely immune to vampires and stay beautiful forever?"

Cordelia's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

* * *

"Looks like Cordelia's taking the upgrade as soon as she can come up with an excuse to disappear for a few weeks," Buffy announced as she strolled into the library ahead of Xander.

Willow was already there, chatting with a somewhat uncertain Kendra. Willow pouted at the news.

"Of course she is," Willow grumbled.

Kendra looked up in confusion, but Xander smiled at her and suddenly she was too shy to ask. She'd been told a basic explanation of the halloween spell and how it changed the three scoobies, but not any of the details.

"Ah, Buffy, Xander," Giles greeted. "I wished to speak to you. All three of you, actually."

"What about, Giles?" Buffy asked.

"Well, I do think it was rather clever of you to hide your true identities in plain sight by claiming them as aliases, but I am curious about why you felt the need to go to so much trouble," Giles admitted. "What's so important about the halloween spell, in regards to concealing it from these SGC people? You've revealed quite a lot to them..."

"Two reasons, G-man," Xander said. "And a lose-lose scenario."

"How is that?" Giles inquired.

"The first reason is simple," Buffy said. "Teenagers aren't people in the eyes of the law or the government. If they found out who we really are, they would start a war with us, trying to take our ship and our technology, just because it wouldn't even occur to them that we have any right of autonomy."

Giles grimaced. "I wish I could say you were being cynical, but I can imagine that occurring all too easily. And the other reason?"

"They might _not_ treat us like teenagers," Willow said. "They might decide we are aliens and the proper owners of our technology, but that we destroyed and over-wrote ourselves, and accuse us of our own murders or body-snatching or whatever."

"Either way is badness all around, Giles," Buffy said.

"Yes, I imagine so," Giles admitted reluctantly.

Xander sidled up to where Kendra was sharpening a dagger. "Nice knife."

* * *

"I _knew_ I'd heard of Sunnydale before," Elizabeth Weir said.

Jack O'Neill shifted the phone to his other ear. "You knew about this hellmouth business?"

"Rumors," she said. "I saw a lot of the underbelly of the world in my previous line of work, Colonel. There was talk."

Jack scrubbed a hand through his hair. "And these Watcher's Council people?"

Weir hesitated. "Yes, them. A long-standing British NGO with very deep connections. I'm afraid they're a step ahead of us Colonel. This morning I received orders straight from the President that we're not to interfere with Rupert Giles or his operation in Sunnydale."

Jack groaned.

"It gets worse," Weir said. "Apparently the Watcher's Council has surviving historical documentation that proves their prior claim to the Stargate."

"Son of a bitch."

"Fortunately, since the Stargate we're actually using now was pulled out of Antarctica by the Russians, we had some negotiating leverage," Weir told him. "We had to give the British a presence in Homeworld Security, and the US government is paying some small monetary reparations for the loss of the first Stargate, but it looks like we've avoided any further conflict."

"What about our current mission?" Jack asked.

"You have until the end of the week to convince the Fae to sign the unaltered NDAs. If you don't convince them by the deadline, I've been ordered to accept the modified NDAs and pull you out," Weir informed him.

Jack snorted. "Yeah, I really don't see that happening. Until next check-in, Doctor."

* * *

Willow leaped from the grass and grabbed a low branch of the tree outside Buffy's window. She swung her body up, climbing with ease until she landed lightly on the roof outside Buffy's room.

Smiling at the sight of Xander with his head between Buffy's legs while Buffy writhed around on her back, Willow eased the window open and slipped inside. Xander glanced up at the sound of the window shutting and Willow waved.

"Ahhhuh. Aahoh. Aauuh. Ohaaah!" Buffy moaned as her thighs clamped Xander's head.

Willow stripped off her clothes and tossed them onto Buffy's desk. _How long have you been licking her?_

_Since she woke up from her Slayer Nap four hours ago,_ Xander replied.

Willow giggled. _No wonder she didn't notice me come in. Four hours? And you haven't gotten bored yet?_

_Hey, this is fun when my tongue can't get tired and I don't need to come up for air,_ Xander pointed out. _It's actually, um, kind of hard to stop. I'm like, in the zone or something. Help?_

"Ooohha! Oh fuck. Ohhh! Aauuuhhgn!" Buffy gasped as she climaxed again.

Willow snickered as she slid a hand down between her legs and rubbed a slow circle. She knelt down behind Xander at the edge of the bed and pressed herself to his back, rubbing her breasts on his warm smooth skin. Wrapping both arms around him, Willow straddled his hips and ground her pussy against the base of his spine.

Buffy reached another orgasm. "Aaahnnngnah. Aohhh. Aauhaaahhh!"

Licking buffycum off Xander's cheek, Willow reached down and grasped his wet thickness, twisting her hand around his slippery glans, making him twitch and moan. With a shudder, Xander's cum spurted into her hand and he reared back from Buffy's crotch with a gasp.

Buffy's legs flopped to the sides and she lay there in a limp panting heap. The panting wasn't from an actual need for air, so it was a slower and more shuddery thing than out-of-breath panting.

A moment's focus cleaned Xander's cum from Willow's hand with her Utility Cloud. She climbed the rest of the way up Xander's back until she was on top of Buffy. Willow greeted her with a kiss.

"Willow? When did you get here?" Buffy wondered.

Willow laughed and dropped herself flat on top of Buffy. Buffy pouted playfully and rolled them over, pinning Willow's arms over her head as she resumed the kissage. Xander took the opportunity to flop down on his side in the vacated space.

Buffy released Willow's lips, and Xander leaned in to kiss her hard while Buffy held her down. Her tongue greeted his with eagerness.

"Spoons?" Willow suggested.

Xander slipped an arm under Willow and dragged her back to his chest. She wriggled happily in his arms, arching her back to provide a better angle for Xander's cock. Positioned at her opening, he thrust, and Willow's vagina swallowed his length with a wet squelch until her butt squished snugly against his hips. Willow shivered with pleasure.

"Xander," Willow sighed softly.

Facing Willow, Buffy squeezed her leg under her two friends and crossed her ankles behind Xander's back. Willow pulled her close with a smile, using Xander's arm as a pillow. Xander brushed Willow's hair out of the way and started softly kissing her neck while Buffy and Willow exchanged little affectionate kisses of their own.

"So, what's going on with you and that Oz guy?" Xander asked after a while.

Willow grinned. "There's totally sparkage."

"He seemed nice," Buffy opined.

Willow nodded. "I like him. I think he's had a crush on me for a while. He's so cute and serious and stoic and whimsical."

"Stoic _and_ whimsical," Xander repeated teasingly, flexing his erection and making Willow's breath hitch.

Willow giggled. "You have to meet him to see what I mean."

"What're you gonna tell him?" Buffy asked. "I mean, do you think he's gonna understand... this?"

Xander shuddered and Willow felt his penis spasm inside her as he ejaculated. His slow, languid thrusts continued without pause.

"It kinda depends, I guess," Willow said. "I don't really know him well enough to guess how he'll react, yet."

"Polyamory," Xander said.

"Huh?"

Xander shrugged. "It's a thing people do, and probably the most accurate way to describe the way our friendship looks from the outside. You could start with that, and go from there if he's okay with it."

"Hmm," Willow hummed thoughtfully.

Buffy sighed. "It's too bad we can't just invite him over to hang and bang."

Xander snorted. "Hang and bang?"

"What?" Buffy asked. "Isn't that what we're doing?"

"Well yeah," Willow agreed, "but it does sound kinda funny in english andaahooh oooh."

Willow convulsed as Xander's slow thrusts finally pushed her over the edge.

* * *

The next day at school, Willow spotted Oz getting a box of animal crackers from a vending machine. She went over and waited for him to notice her.

Oz stood up and smiled when he saw her there. "Hey. Animal cracker?"

"Sure." Willow bit into a giraffe as they walked together.

Oz pulled out a cookie of his own and paused. "Oh look. Monkey! And he has a little hat. And little pants."

"Yeah, he does," Willow agreed, smiling at him.

"You have the sweetest smile I've ever seen," Oz suddenly told her.

Willow accepted the compliment with a bashful expression, bumping Oz's shoulder affectionately.

Oz ate a bear. "The monkey's the only cookie animal that gets to wear clothes, you know that?"

Willow nodded with mock seriousness. "Oh. I did know that."

"So, I'm wondering," Oz continued. "Do the other cookie animals feel sorta ripped? Like, is the hippo going, hey man, where are my pants? I have my hippo dignity!"

Willow giggled. "Or maybe, the monkey feels left out 'cause the other cookie animals get to do the nude thing, but they're all like, we don't like monkeys. Monkeys are gross! You cover up your vulgar monkey parts, you monkey you."

Oz smiled in amusement as he gave her a raised eyebrow. "You don't think the monkey lords it over them, up in his treehouse," Oz put on a french accent, "I mock you with my monkey pants!"

Willow laughed. "The monkey's French?"

"All monkeys are French," Oz told her. "You didn't know that?"

"No," Willow giggled. "That I didn't know. Maybe the monkey's all like, if you're gonna make me wear pants, I'm gonna wear the best darn pants in the cookie box! Mwhahaha!"

Oz smiled.

"I like your smile too, you know," Willow told him. "Hey, I bet the other cookie animals are jealous of the cookie bear, 'cause of the dancing. Bears do that, you know. Dance."

* * *

"Hey Giles," Buffy greeted. "Where's Kendra?"

"Ah, I believe she is resting," Giles said.

Buffy strolled over and took a seat. "You two seem to be getting along like... two getting along really well, people..."

"Erm, yes, I suppose," Giles said. "Her watcher, a Mr. Sam Zabuto, has assigned her to work under my leadership for the time being."

"So, I guess there really is a New Slayer in Town," Buffy said wryly.

Giles polished his glasses. "I'm sure no one means to, to step on your toes, so to speak..."

"No," Buffy interrupted. "No, it's okay. I'm kinda okay with stepping aside and letting Kendra be _the_ Slayer. Just... don't let her get herself killed, okay? If something big comes up, don't leave me out of it."

Giles looked at her. "It never occurred to me to do otherwise."

"Really?" Buffy asked innocently. "Because recently I've been kind of feeling like you don't trust me very much."

Giles sighed. "I may believe you are somewhat misguided in... a certain endeavor, Buffy, but you have never given me reason to doubt your heart, or your heroism."

Buffy smiled, more relieved to hear him say that than she would have thought.

* * *

It was SG-1's last day in Sunnydale, and they hadn't found anything. Samantha Carter winced. Well, they hadn't found anything more to do with any of Stargate Command's purview, but Sunnydale seemed to be the inspiration for every cheesy horror movie ever made. The newspapers barely even made a token effort to hide it. She'd actually seen an old headline that read, _Monsters Not Involved In Halloween Riots!_

Samantha settled into her seat in the town's most prominent coffee place and opened her laptop as she sipped her hot beverage.

It didn't sit right with her at all, that all this was going on and people just accepted or ignored it. A part of her wanted to just evacuate the town and then bomb it, but it wasn't her call, or the SGC's for that matter.

"Well ain't that a beauty," a man's voice said.

Samantha looked up from her laptop and saw a casually dressed man giving the computer a genial smile. He looked to her with a sincere expression.

"Excuse me?"

"My pardons," the man said lightly. "I was admiring your system there." He rattled off the specs and made a few remarkably accurate guesses about her customizations.

After a short chat on the merits of various hardware choices, she offered her hand and introduced herself. "Samantha."

"Well hello to you, Samantha. It's a pleasure," the man said. "You can call me Ted."


	12. BONUS CHAPTER Zach Reon Omake

**BONUS CHAPTER**  
**Zach Reon Omake**

Finding himself on some twisted magical Earth with no warning had been weird enough, but Eelesia and Lyn were with him so it didn't really matter so much where they were. Unfortunately even that didn't last.

A sudden intense pressure had swept over him, and it had felt like he'd been torn out of his body. A moment's examination while he tumbled through some bizarre tunnel of pulsing green light had revealed much the opposite, however. Zach Reon was back to his normal appearance, the way he'd looked before being magically summoned to Sunnydale.

Well, normal was relative. Zach had reinvented his appearance every decade or so, searching for a form that both reflected him and that he wouldn't get tired of. Currently, he was just under six feet tall, with a muscular bishonen physique, lustrous red skin, pure white spiky hair, thundercloud-grey eyes, and three-inch pointed ears. He'd looked this way for just over six years, and still wasn't really sure if it was 'him' or not.

Despite that, being back in his own body was more comforting than one might think, given that he was currently tumbling like a leaf through some kind of green negative space wedgie. And if that wasn't strange enough, he was starting to hear a girls voice speaking a hybrid of french and english that he'd never heard before.

"Pentagon of the five elemental powers, heed my summoning."

The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, but at her words the raging chaotic not-wind seemed to start pushing Zach in a particular direction.

"My familiar that exists somewhere in this vast universe, my divine, beautiful, wise, powerful servant. Follow my fate, hear the wish of my heart, and come forth!"

And just like that, Zach was sucked into a void of nothingness, and a moment later his world lurched and he found himself standing on solid ground.

"_Now_ where am I?" Zach muttered to himself.

A thick cloud of dust surrounded him, and he felt the prickles of Earth-grass under his feet. He parsed the girl's words, and rubbed his forehead when he realized he'd been magically summoned _again_. Twice in one day. At least this time he'd been aware it was happening.

From within the blinding dust, Zach heard more voices, some of which seemed to be jeering, accompanied by a good deal of coughing.

"Haha! Another failure for Louise the Zero!"

"Hey, Louise! You're supposed to summon your familiar, not blow it up!"

"I toldya the Zero would screw this up too."

Extending his Utility Cloud, Zach formed an electrostatic bubble around himself and flexed it outward. The expanding electrostatic bubble rapidly swept the dust from the air with an eerie subsonic whisper.

Zach was greeted by the sight of a pink-haired girl in a uniform of some kind stumbling back from the sudden outward blasting of dust. Looking around in the cleared air, Zach blinked in astonishment. He was standing on a grassy lawn enclosed by stone walls, and surrounded by a sparse crowd all wearing a similar uniform, and scattered among them...

"Okay, two questions," Zach muttered to himself. "One, where am I? Two, why are there pokemon everywhere?"

At a second glance, none of the actual fictional species were represented, but he'd be gambled if anyone who'd seen a Charmeleon or a Sandslash wouldn't immediately think, _Pokemon!_ if they found themselves seeing what Zach was.

Zach's whimsical musing was interrupted as the crowd started babbling. The pink-haired girl was stuttering incoherently, in some mix of terror, anger, despair, and wonder.

"Eeek! What is it?" someone shouted.

"He's so red!"

"Ahh! He's naked!"

"Are those pointed ears?"

"So... big..."

"E-e-e-elf!"

"Ack! What's it doing like that! It's some kind of pervert!"

"It looks like a demon!"

"Kirche, you're drooling."

"Oh Brimir! Louise summoned a perverted demon elf! We're all going to die!"

It took Zach a few moments to parse all of that. Once he worked it out, he rolled his eyes. These people took jumping to conclusions to whole new levels. While he was trying to figure out how to introduce himself and ask what was going on, a tall balding guy wearing a high-collared blue coat and glasses came over to the pink-haired girl, who was apparently named Louise.

"Professor Colbert!" Louise stammered. "I... this can't... it has to be a mistake! Can I please start over and try again?"

"I'm afraid not, Miss Valliere," the man called Colbert told her. "The Springtime Familiar Summoning is a sacred tradition. You must complete the ritual."

Louise whipped her head between Colbert and Zach, gesturing wildly. "B-but he's naked! And..." incoherent noise as she pointed at his crotch, "and possibly evil!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Valliere," Colbert said. "This being is what your summoning brought forth. The tradition is inviolate. You must complete the binding if you wish to remain a student at Tristain Academy."

Louise took a nervous step towards Zach, her eyes slipping down to his manhood, making her blush and gulp. Her hands were clenched into tight fists at her sides, with one hand grasping a wooden rod.

Zach just looked at her, not bothering to hide his confusion. His lack of hostility (or amorous intent) made Louise bolder. She raised her rod and swallowed.

"My name is Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere," she intoned grandly. "Pentagon of the five elemental powers! Bless this creature and bind him as my familiar!"

Louise closed the distance between them, her face set with determination, until she was close enough that Zach could have poked her chest with his penis if he'd wanted to. She looked up at him, went up on tiptoes, and promptly scowled in annoyance. Behind her, a mocking murmur was starting up in the crowd again.

Zach finished parsing what he'd heard, and blinked. "Wait, what's this about 'binding'?"

Of course, Louise couldn't understand him. She just grabbed his arms and pulled. Zach didn't think to resist, and bent down. Louise went up on tiptoes again, and kissed him.

Zach startled when a bright silver light suddenly shown from the back of his right hand, followed almost immediately by his pain receptors cutting off. He pulled away from Louise and held his hand out in front of him, staring at it warily. For his pain receptors to go numb, it had to be actually damaging him somehow, and that didn't bode well.

Zach looked around suspiciously, but neither Louise, Colbert, or any of the spectators looked like they expected him to be flailing in agony. Maybe it was just supposed to be some kind of magical tattoo.

Louise let out a sigh of relief.

"Congratulations, Miss Valliere," Colbert said. "And that concludes this Springtime Familiar Summoning!"

* * *

Zach's hand was still glowing, and he was still numb. As the rest of the students and their familiars began to disperse, Louise took off her jacket and demanded that he tie it around his waist. He rolled his eyes, but made the small concession to the local's sense of propriety.

Once he was covered to her satisfaction, Louise finally took notice of his still-glowing hand. She grabbed Zach's wrist and tugged him over to Professor Colbert. Zach went along. It wasn't like he had anything better to do. Besides, he couldn't do much until he'd heard enough of the language to feel confident speaking.

"Professor Colbert, is my familiar's rune supposed to be doing that?" Louise asked.

"Hmm?" Colbert inquired. "Oh, that is unusual. It seems your contract is still in the process of being established."

"What?" Louise demanded. "Does that mean I did it wrong?"

Colbert studied Zach's hand for a moment. "I don't believe so. It appears you cast the spell properly. It simply hasn't finished yet. Most intriguing." He met Zach's eyes. "Do you perhaps understand enough to tell us what you are?"

Louise got impatient. "Well? Answer him, familiar!"

Zach parsed Colbert's question, and pointed to himself. "Zach Reon." He made an expansive gesture down his body. "Fae."

"Fae?" Louise repeated. "What's a fae? Does he mean he's a fairy?"

"I do not know, Miss Valliere," Colbert said. "I don't think I can tell you why the spell is taking so long to complete without further observation."

"Oh," Louise said. "So should I just wait for it to finish?"

* * *

Zach followed Louise into a spacious and well-furnished dorm room. Zach studied her in concern. She looked increasingly tired with every passing minute, and stumbled leaning heavily on the doorlatch as she staggered inside.

The professor, Colbert, hadn't seemed particularly concerned by the rapidly developing dark circles under Louise's eyes, but... Zach shrugged. Maybe he just wasn't used to humans.

Zach was still numb, with that glow of silver blazing away on the back of his hand. He leaned against the wall and watched Louise stumble.

"Alright, familiar," Louise said. "This is my room, where you'll be living." She pointed at a pile of hay. "That is where you will sleep. You will, will wash my clothes and have a fresh outfit ready for me every, every morning. You will have..." She swayed. "You will..."

Louise stumbled to the side, eyes rolling up into her head. Alarmed, Zach lunged forward and caught her before she could hit the ground. Zach shook her gently, but she didn't respond at all. Picking her up, Zach yanked the door open with his Utility Cloud and hurried out into the hall.

Looking around for help, he spotted a blonde boy and a brunette girl flirting in an alcove. They were startled by the sight of him, but he managed to ask where the infirmary was.

* * *

Zach leaned against the wall of the infirmary, watching several people who were apparently teachers or hospital staff, and an older man with a long beard and grey robes, fuss over Louise's comatose form. Zach had translated that much. She was actually in a coma.

The questioning had been simple. Zach hadn't been able to say much more than that she was tired and then she fell down. Finally, it seemed they came to a conclusion.

"Yes, I understand what I was seeing now," Colbert said. "The familiar contract is still attempting to complete the marking process. For reasons unknown, burning the rune onto Mr. Reon's hand has proven difficult enough to drain all of Miss Valliere's _volonte_."

"How can this be?" a woman asked. "It is a simple branding. It cannot possibly require more than a token amount of _volonte_."

"The how is not our immediate concern," the long-bearded headmaster said. "Miss Valliere's life is in danger. Her body has shut down and is doing little more than generating _volonte_ to complete that brand. I fear that she is unable to generate it quickly enough to meet the demand, and the spell will soon begin consuming her very life."

"Would killing the familiar save her?"

"Perhaps, though I do not think we ought to deprive Miss Valliere of her familiar unless we have no other choice."

After parsing this, Zach scowled. So he was a slave, then. Worse, even. He'd wondered, with the way Louise had suddenly stopped being afraid of him once the brand on his hand lit up, and ordered him around like she expected him to obey without thought.

Zach looked at the back of his hand with two parts worry and one part anger.

They talked about killing him like he wasn't a person, because to them he was nothing but a magically-controlled tool. Even if they _could_ bind him or kill him, that was not the kind of thinking he was going to quietly cooperate with.

Colbert spoke up. "I think our best option is for several donors to lend enough _volonte_ for the spell to complete."

While the professors discussed the practical risks of such a procedure, Zach quietly slipped away. He felt bad about Louise, but he simply wasn't willing to give up his life to save her from her own mistake.

Distance was no obstacle when one had all the time in the world. Maybe he'd find somewhere with more respect for a being's personhood.

* * *

Zach didn't wait around. He pulled Louise's jacket from his waist and left in on the floor as he leaped from a window and tucked into a roll as he hit the ground. He was currently incapable of feeling pain or pleasure, but his sense of touch and balance still worked just fine.

He startled a chubby blonde boy as he landed, making the student fall on his butt. Zach didn't pay him any mind, and started jogging. A few of the students who were milling around took note of him, by Zach just kept running faster and faster straight at one of the outer walls.

Zach reached the wall and leaped, running three steps straight up the wall and grabbing the top edge. He pulled himself up in once smooth motion, his arms exerting enough force to throw him clear of the wall.

He hit the ground and rolled to his feet, continuing on at a sprint without slowing down or looking back.

* * *

Ten hours and more than three hundred kilometers away, Zach's hand stopped glowing. Four hours after that, the markings were gone completely. Louise Valliere was dead, and Zach was free.

* * *

Meanwhile...

Saito Hiraga was having a normal day. He most certainly _hadn't_ been abducted off the street by some kind of magical portal. His classmates were still throwing wild ideas about what the mysterious elliptical object that had drifted across the sky had been. The official story was a weather balloon, but the otaku were insisting it had been a space ship or something.

Whatever, the point is, Saito was having a perfectly normal day, walking down the street, _not_ being abused by a pink-haired tsundere in another dimension or wherever. So, when a girl with wild dark hair in twin tails, green eyes, and glasses stepped into the street without looking where she was going, Saito was there to see.

Blaring car horns. "Look out!"

Saito collided with the girl before he realized he'd moved, and then, to his complete astonishment, blinked and found himself face down on the side-walk with his arm bent behind his back.

"Oh," the girl, who now had a knee in his back, whispered, quickly letting him go. "I'm sorry! Many apologies!"

Saito clambered to his feet and gave the girl a disgruntled, sour expression.

The girl winced, and bowed. "Very sorry! It was a reflex! But, thank you so much. You saved me from that car! Please let me repay you for your trouble!"

"Some reflex," Saito grumbled, but then he smiled. "And you're welcome. I saw you about to be hit, and well, I'm not sure what happened. I am glad you're not hurt."

"It was careless of me," the girl admitted. "See, my younger sister recently left home for a, um, ... in a... very far away place. I've been missing her terribly. Thank you again for saving me!"

Saito rubbed the back of his head. "Well, um, what's your name? I'm Saito."

"I'm Miyuki," the girl introduced herself. "Miyuki Takamachi."

* * *

(I do not own **Familiar of Zero**, **Pokemon**, or **Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha**.)


End file.
